July Errata is up

[keterys]

It's unnecessary for any rogue who doesn't stealth that often. Most rogues manage to get CA just fine without stealth. It's redundant for any Cunning Sneak rogue. It's not terribly exciting for rogues who are in melee most of the time.

As far as I can tell, that's a majority of rogues.

It is a better utility if you have a DM who helps the battle terrain a bit so that you can stealth more easily. In a campaign like LFR, that's less exciting, and some DMs are just aggressively unhelpful due to disliking the tactic or being actively lazy about terrain (which is sad, in general, for 4e, but there you go).

It's very good. It's very solid. Of the six or so rogues I've played alongside or DMed, I'd only consider it awesome for one, and a solid pick for another.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It's unnecessary for any rogue who doesn't stealth that often. Most rogues manage to get CA just fine without stealth. It's redundant for any Cunning Sneak rogue. It's not terribly exciting for rogues who are in melee most of the time.

As far as I can tell, that's a majority of rogues.

It is a better utility if you have a DM who helps the battle terrain a bit so that you can stealth more easily. In a campaign like LFR, that's less exciting, and some DMs are just aggressively unhelpful due to disliking the tactic or being actively lazy about terrain (which is sad, in general, for 4e, but there you go).

It's very good. It's very solid. Of the six or so rogues I've played alongside or DMed, I'd only consider it awesome for one, and a solid pick for another.

Well, it will vary a lot depending on the DM. At least in the games I run the players have certainly learned that having the rogue (usually with the warlock as a backup since he's pretty darn sneaky as well) scouting things out is a pretty key tactic. Having FG really makes that a lot easier to do reliably. I tend to have a lot of situations where a rogue can move around to an advantageous flanking position early in an encounter and get some significant advantage for instance.

It certainly isn't CRITICAL even in my game, but pretty nice to have. Sneak in the Attack, and Tumble are certainly good utilities as well. I think FG has certainly lost a decent amount of its luster over time with various rulings on Stealth, new builds, other powers at other levels that can produce similar results etc. I'd still call it a pretty good utility power to have in your back pocket. One reason being it has a fair amount of utility even outside of combat (quickly escaping or trailing a moving enemy for instance).

 

[Legildur]

If Dragon options are allowed, have a look at "Swift Parry" at level 6. It's an encounter power which adds your charisma modifier to defenses vs. one attack as an interrupt, and gives you combat advantage against the attacker for one turn. It's basically the Rogue's version of Shield, with extras .

I like that power! But no Dragon Magazine options for us.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

So now what do I do with Ignoble Escape?

As a level 6 rogue utility, the only difference compared with Tumble (level 2 rogue utility) is that it can remove the marked condition.

And it means you can do the shift your speed trick twice per encounter. Provided you keep Tumble, too. Might be useful, depending on your build and your group.

 

[Maximilia]

Ok, we had our first game session after the errata and... the new Magic Missile sucks. Although I was always auto-hitting, it felt like I wasn't doing anything. I think it was semi-frustrating for the GM too because even though we were making fun about taking a nap inbetween rounds, I was always hitting and since the beastie I was attacking hovered at range 20, after Force Orb, that was... well, that was it for my attack powers at that range.

Completely unfun.

 

[eamon]

Ok, we had our first game session after the errata and... the new Magic Missile sucks. Although I was always auto-hitting, it felt like I wasn't doing anything. I think it was semi-frustrating for the GM too because even though we were making fun about taking a nap inbetween rounds, I was always hitting and since the beastie I was attacking hovered at range 20, after Force Orb, that was... well, that was it for my attack powers at that range.

Anything that's consistently beyond range 10 is problematic anyhow...

 

[keterys]

That wasn't necessarily the spell sucking (though it might also have been), but it was definitely the monster and/or DM sucking.

 

[Piratecat]

Ok, we had our first game session after the errata and... the new Magic Missile sucks. Although I was always auto-hitting, it felt like I wasn't doing anything. I think it was semi-frustrating for the GM too because even though we were making fun about taking a nap inbetween rounds, I was always hitting and since the beastie I was attacking hovered at range 20, after Force Orb, that was... well, that was it for my attack powers at that range.

Completely unfun.

We had a different experience; with the elite ghoul bride dropped all the way down to 1 hp (almost dead!) and fleeing into tunnels, the wizard was up next. He used an action point to drop into the narrow ghoul burrows, a minor to create light, a move to crawl around the corner of the tunnel, and magic missile to blow apart the ghoul bride's spine. They really, really wanted something that wasn't going to miss. The whole group cheered.

Like anything, I think the spell is situational in its usefulness. Our wizard has a master's wand of magic missiles as well, so every use is a free unavoidable push.

 

[Maximilia]

That wasn't necessarily the spell sucking (though it might also have been), but it was definitely the monster and/or DM sucking.

I think I didn't express myself clearly--it was completely unfun because it felt like I was doing nothing. There was no roll, no anticipation of maybe missing, and no challenge, thus... unfun. I LIKE difficult games, and when things go wrong. Some of the best times in games are when things go completely wrong and to me, there's just no chance of that with MM. Now, a situation of the epic proportion described directly above would have been way more epic had the wizard rolled and then hit instead of auto-hitting (but it sounded pretty epic anyway, good story, hehe).

I hate to admit it, but when things look the most desperate, I have the most fun because if we pull it off (without the GM fudging of course, I frown upon that but understand the necessity of it at times) then I feel like we pulled it together. For example... one of the fights we had was in a semi-nil magic area--anything with the keywords arcane or holy had a 50% chance of not firing at all. We ended up running away, but to me it really underscored what a one-trick pony I kinda was since all my powers had the arcane keyword. I learned something about my character (and am moving to compensate for that) and had fun at the same time.

>.>

I realize though that not many may like that level of difficulty.

 

[keterys]

I've done an 18 round plinking away with magic missile combat. It wasn't noticeably more exciting cause I got to roll.

It was just a boring combat, where the DM could have made the combat more interesting to start, and certainly could have done so in play.