Mr. Teapot
First Post
Simply standing still to gain CA has a notable opportunity cost in and of itself, because it means that you aren't using a different trick to do more damage or damage an additional foe or go into hiding or knock prone.
Ambush Trick
- Thread starter BobTheNob
- Start date
Prestidigitalis
First Post
A lone opponent may be a bad target for a variety of reasons -- it's a minion, it's out of range, it has cover, or it's just not the one the party is focusing fire on.
Note that a Slayer can get very nearly the same damage every time with no conditions, no constrained actions, higher AC, hit points and surges. You go with a Thief for the skills or because you like the style of play, not for the extra damage relative to the Slayer.
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Prestidigitalis
First Post
BTW, Occam -- have you had a chance to try out Tactical Trick? To me, that appears to be slightly better than Ambush Trick.
Obviously the move part is better because it gives a bit more than just "you move" -- it lets you avoid OAs in some cases.
At the start of combat, you may not be able to use Tactical Trick because no one has closed to melee range yet, but First Strike probably gives you CA, and you can use Acrobat's Trick to get +2/4/6 damage.
By the second round of combat, it's almost certain that some of your allies have closed to melee range, so you can use Tactical Trick easily. The foes adjacent to your allies are probably getting focus fire, so they are the ones you want to attack anyway.
I do see Ambush Trick being stellar for one ugly case in particular -- it's damn hard to get flanking on a flying creature, but a flying creature almost certainly has no adjacent allies.
Obviously the move part is better because it gives a bit more than just "you move" -- it lets you avoid OAs in some cases.
At the start of combat, you may not be able to use Tactical Trick because no one has closed to melee range yet, but First Strike probably gives you CA, and you can use Acrobat's Trick to get +2/4/6 damage.
By the second round of combat, it's almost certain that some of your allies have closed to melee range, so you can use Tactical Trick easily. The foes adjacent to your allies are probably getting focus fire, so they are the ones you want to attack anyway.
I do see Ambush Trick being stellar for one ugly case in particular -- it's damn hard to get flanking on a flying creature, but a flying creature almost certainly has no adjacent allies.
occam
Hero
It's close, that's true, and a slayer has advantages in combat that a thief doesn't. I haven't seen a slayer used much yet, so I can't compare based on experience.
What I'm really comparing the thief to is the "old" 4e rogue. I played a shadowy rogue (Martial Power 2) for a while, and even with that I felt I was borderline cheating. Hiding was so easy! Even so, there were still times I couldn't get CA, due to less-than-perfect planning or poor circumstances. The thief makes that build look like a fiddly tactical nightmare, and there's no comparison with other builds of rogue.
Yes, when compared to other striker classes, particularly in Essentials, the thief isn't out of line. As I said, maybe this is unjustified 4e grognardism at play, if such a thing can exist.
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