Book 8 Burglar Changes
by Zombie_Columbus


Click here to see Burglar set Book 8 The Ladys Secrecy


Welcome all to the Burglar Book 8 update extravaganza! We've got a lot to go over, so lets cut right to the chase. The majority of the updates in this Book have been centered around the traitlines. As such, many of the updates will be explained in the context of the traitline they effect the most. At the end, we'll discuss general updates and have a FAQ. So, let's jump right into it!

The Gambler:
The Book 7 updates to the Gambler line left it in a pretty solid position, so the changes here are on the minor side. First, two rarely used traits were slightly buffed up:

• Cruel Odds application rate increased to 10% and 25%.
• Even the Odds buff is now +50% gamble chance.

Next was a small tweak to Lucky Strike. The damage of damaging gambles is a bit too high to justify the natural damage of the skill, so it was lowered a bit:

• Lucky Strike damage decreased.

Lastly, we want to incentive the capstone legendary traits more. For the Gamble line, we took 5% off the application chances of each of the trick removal skills, then added a 10% bonus to gamble applications to the legendary trait, Dealings Done.

• -5% all base gamble application rates.
• +10% gamble application rate added to Dealings Done.

That’s about it for The Gambler. A net increase in gamble chances if you fully trait, and a small decrease if you don’t, and a few touched up traits. You were all expecting only minor changes anyway









Quiet Knife:
High DPS is not a mainstay of the Burglar. His job has always been much more nuanced then that (I can’t wait to see that line in peoples sigs.) Perhaps if Quiet Knife line was similar to the Lore-masters DPS line, decreasing CC abilities to buff up DPS? Unfortunately this would be a rather major overhaul that would likely cause frustration. Instead, to focus of Quiet Knife has been to reorder the traitline to require more commitment to gain bonuses, enhance what bonuses it has, enhance underused traits and give an interesting endgame DPS rotation. Lets start with the traitline bonuses:

• 2 set bonus is now 5% positional damage and 10% critical damage
• 3 set bonus remains the same
• 4 set bonus is now 5% positional damage and on devastating critical, an additional 10% positional damage and 20% critical damage
• Practiced Bluff now grants +5% damage to all From Stealth attacks.

Yes, the best bonus (+15% positional damage) was moved deeper into the line. However, a dedicated QK player will be able to set up some pretty significant damage if he can stay behind his target for an extended period. If that player has also invested IA time into reducing the recovery of Improved Feint Attack (which makes your next attack count as From Stealth, remember?), a significant amount of damage can be pumped out. How? Why, with these updated traits:

• Strike from Shadows now increases stealth critical chance by a flat percentage.
• Hidden Knife adds 2% damage to all From Stealth attacks.
• Strategic Planning now decreases Location is Everything’s recovery by 3 minutes.

These skill updates also should be mentioned now:

• The "From Stealth" version of Cunning Attack has had its damage increased
• Devastating criticals of Cunning Attack now apply even stronger Damage over Time
• "Well-placed Strike" has its Recovery reduced to 3 minutes.
• Cunning Attack has its recovery increased to 5s

And that’s it! So, we’ve got more trait utility, a traitline that requires some commitment to, but grants some hefty bonuses and a strong DPS rotation utilizing Feint Attack. All this, while still being able to throw tricks, FM’s and stuns all over.

Mischief-maker:
Ah, Mischief. I saved the best for last you know? Much maligned for reasons that still baffle me, this line now houses a buff some of you have asked a while for, and some tweaks I think you will all like. I have not allowed the stacking of multiple tricks on a single target. Just wanted to get saying that out of the way now. It is still a possibility for the future, but right now it would be much too potent given the rest of the Burglars skill set (and yes, I know you don’t agree.) That said, a few nice additions were made to Tricks:

• 2 set bonus now helps bypass resistance on tricks AND trick removals
• 3 set bonus now increases non-enrage trick duration by 10s while in Mischief AND adds 5s to riddle duration while in Mischief
• 4 set bonus reduces trick removal duration by 5s (all the time) AND on devastating critical increases the potency of all trick removals by 15%
• Little Annoyances now increases non-enrage trick duration by 20s while in Mischief

So, 60s long tricks, chain-mez without Perplexing Riddle, shorter trick removals all the time and a chance to have empowered trick removals for a short time! I think you’d have a blast in this line, even without the following:

• Disable Recovery reduced to 5s, duration increased to 30s.
• Small Snag damage has been increased
• Trick removal skills now show their effects in skill tooltips

Not much else to say, I think those changes speak for themselves (yeah, the last one was just fluff, but who doesn’t like readability!)


General Updates:
And all the rest… No change to Stealth recovery. Just putting that out there. We know many of you want it, but it serves its purpose. We did make a little change to stealth though:

• Share the Fun IA movespeed legacy has been removed. The Stalk legacy now increases STF speed.

Your welcome. How about this?

• Flashing Blades damage increased.

I know I know, why didn’t we add a third attack hook? Well, we did, and the skill still looked like it needed more attack hooks to sync with each strike. Flashing Blades is a flurry of attacks with each hand that, for simplicity's sake, we display as a single strike with each hand. The damage increase that more attacks would have provided has been instead added to the two strikes it still delivers. I am well aware this is insufficient for some of you, but try to remember that a good skill has been buffed. Speaking of buffs…

• Little Annoyances, Dealings Done, and Practiced Bluff now reduce cool down by 140 seconds (was 120 seconds).
• Stick and Move now increases partial evade chances and mitigation
• Track Treasure now stacks with other resource crafting radar toggles.