Game Mechanics The Great Trickster Rework

Welcome to a stupidly long thread! Now's your last chance to flee. No seriously, I spent 4 hours straight writing this

I am here to discuss Trickster. Now, Trickster previously had suggestions made back in 2.0 Hero Beta threads, but since those are gone, this needs to be revived. Trickster received 0 changes throughout the entirety of Beta despite it being the most hated Archetype functionality wise. But I'm going to make a bold statement: Trickster is good. Well, sort of. It needs a lot of work. But what exactly is wrong with Trickster?

What Makes Trickster Good?

Spoiler: The Good Stuff

• Boosted AoE: Clones provide a massive increase in AoE, which helps with Crowd Control and gives Assassin the same privileges as Shaman's Totem

• Smoke Bomb Damage Buff: While inside Smoke Bomb, the user has their damage increased significantly, which offsets the negative damage values given by the Clones

• Lure: Warrior used to be the only Agro taker due to Taunt (and now Provoke). But Lure now gives Assassin the unique opportunity to be an extra supporting roll. And even better, Lure overrides War Scream.

What Makes Trickster Bad?

Spoiler: The Not So Good Stuff

• Cooldowns: I'm sure everyone is familiar with this. 40s Cooldown for 6 Clones? That's absurd. Especially if Trickster is supposed to be a tank. How is Trickster going to tank damage via Clones if none are active? Warrior's Mantle of the Bovemist has 3 Shields with a 20s Cooldown. That lines up with Trickster's initial 3 Clones. However, when Warrior gets Stronger Mantle for the +2 Shield charge, the Cooldown time does not increase. So why does Trickster get DOUBLE the Cooldown?

• Sandbagging: This purely exists to reduce Clones' Cooldown, which is pretty terrible for an ability. Congrats, you unlocked something that lets you use your main ability sooner under extremely limited circumstances! Sandbagging triggers only when you receive damage that's less than 5% of your Max HP. If you don't have a tank build, even with Clone damage reduction, this is still unlikely to happen. With a tank build, it'll definitely trigger when a Clone perishes, but it still may be situational triggering without Clones. Against normal enemies, Sandbagging is likely to trigger. But against bosses where Clones are absolutely essential, that chance is significantly reduced. Let's assume every time you lose 1 Clone, Sandbagging triggers (and lets also assume you have 6 Clones and wait for the 1s Cooldown). Losing 1 Clone reduces the Cooldown by -2s, and then you must wait 1s for Sandbagging's Cooldown. Doing the math, losing all 6 Clones + waiting for Sandbagging to trigger results in the Clones' Cooldown being decreased from 40s to 22s. 22s you have to wait for Mirror Image's Cooldown. Obviously it is unlikely you will lose all your Clones this quickly, but it shows how necessary Sandbagging is Trickster, or more importantly, why the Clones' Cooldown is horrible

• Player Damage Reduction via Clones: It makes sense that Clones would reduce Trickster's damage. But then you have a problem: Whether you have 1 Clone or 6 Clones active, as long as there is at least 1 active, the damage you deal is reduced by -60% (-40% with Stronger Clones). It's horribly unbalanced.

Now that we have the main concerns down, I have come up with some proposals. This is my all time favorite Archetype and I desperately want it to be good. I have put time and thought into this, and do keep in mind I suck at damage values and stats so these numbers are merely a proof of concept. You do not have to accept them at their given value. I even promote the idea of offering your own suggestions. Also all of this is subject to opinion. I will give a reasoning for the said changes, and provide insight onto why I think the suggested changes are good and also potential issues they may face. I also do not know if it is possible to do the suggested changes, but despite that I will assume this is not the case.

Red (Core) Abilities:

Spoiler: Red Abilities

Red Ability 1: Mirror Image

Mirror Image: Leaving Vanish summons 3 Clones. Each Clone has 25% of your Maximum Health and 100% of your Defense, excluding any active buffs (30s Cooldown, 10s per Clone). Clones cannot be directly targeted or damaged by outside forces, nor be healed by allies. Whenever you receive damage, each Clone active will mitigate 15% of the damage you receive (0.5s Cooldown).

Overview:

Spoiler: New Mirror Image Overview

A)

Summoning Clones still functions the same way, and this is for concept purposes. Spin Attack and Smoke Bomb already have their respective functionalities, leaving only Dash (Because summoning them via Multihit makes perfect sense). But summoning Clones out of thin air doesn't fit well, but appearing out of Vanish does.

B)

Clones right now just have a chance to perish. That.. sucks. I'd rather not have my main ability be RNG dependent and just be a worse version of Mantle of the Bovemist. The fix for this is to give Clones health values. This makes Clones more usable and similar to Ophanim Orbs, you can use them multiple times. The Defense value remains the same so they receive damage consistent to what you are receiving (if this is too overpowered, then the defense can be removed and health can be adjusted appropriately)

Now as for the Cooldown, the way Clones work right now is that once you have reached the Cooldown, ALL CLONES are refreshed. With this change, that would be a little too overpowered and negate the entire purpose of Clones having HP. So instead, if you have any missing Clones, using this will only summon the missing ones and adjust the Cooldown accordingly. The Cooldown will remain consistent (10s per Clone) even when you unlock Forbidden Art for +3 Clones (max of 60s Cooldown).

For example: If I have 4 Clones active and use Mirror Image, instead of refreshing all 6 Clones and receiving a 60s Cooldown, it will only summon the missing 2 Clones, and initiate a 20s Cooldown [Because +10s per Clone]. If I have 2 Clones active and use Mirror Image (and I have Forbidden Art unlocked), it will summon 4 Clones and initiate a 40s Cooldown. This allows the user to constantly have Clones active (which may possibly be overpowered).

C)

This is done for balancing purposes. The player would never get hit if the Clones took all the agro from enemies, so this keeps them focused on the player. Clones cannot be healed because as mentioned previously, the point of HP is for them to receive more damage. Healing them up would be overpowered.

D)

This is what treats the Clones as shields and makes Trickster tanky.

Let's start with a basic example: You have 1000 HP. You have 1 Clone active (250 HP) and you receive damage equal to 400 HP. Because each Clone mitigates 15% of the damage you receive, you will receive damage equal to 340 HP and the Clone will receive damage equal to 60 HP.

Now let's look at an example with 3 Clones, using similar parameters: You have 1000 HP, and receive damage equal to 400 HP. Each Clone has 250 HP and mitigates 15% of the damage you receive. We know from the previous example that each Clone reduces the damage you receive by a value equal to 60HP, which is multiplied by 3, meaning you take only damage equal to 220 HP.

There's an issue with this however: If Clones all receive equal damage at the same time, they will all die at around the same time. A simple fix is to make them behave similarly to Ophanim Orbs: The damage rotates. Say we have Clone A, Clone B, and Clone C. Once Clone A receives damage, the next one to receive damage is Clone B. After that is Clone C, before cycling back to Clone A. This ensures damage is staggered so the player won't lose all their Clones at once.

How does the 0.5s Cooldown fit in? Similar to Mantle of the Bovemist, each Clone will block 0.5s worth of damage. So attacks such as Charge will damage 1 Clone, whereas Multihit will damage multiple Clones.

So using the above example with 3 Clones: If the 400 HP damage is dealt in a single blow, only 1 Clone will receive damage, in this case it is equal to 180 HP (15% damage you receive x 3 Clones).
If the 400 HP damage is dealt as 100 HP every 1s, then the damage is dealt as 15 HP to Clone A, 15 HP to Clone B, 15 HP to Clone C, and 15 HP to Clone A.

Upgrades:

Spoiler: Upgrades for New Mirror Image:

Upgrade 1: Last Laugh

Last Laugh: When a Clone perishes, it will explode into a cloud of smoke, dealing 200% damage and blinding enemies for 1.5s.

Last Laugh is very lackluster as of now because Spin Attack doesn't deal very much damage. This will would increase the damage dealt as well as hinder enemies as a punishment for defeating one of your Clones.
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Upgrade 2: Forbidden Art

Forbidden Art: Mirror Image now summons a maximum of 6 Clones. Maximum Cooldown is increased to 60s (10s per Clone)

This functions the same as current Forbidden Art, but because the Cooldown of Mirror Image adjusts based on the number of Clones summoned, this keeps it consistent. In the even you do summon 4+ Clones, the large cooldown won't matter because your Clones will be able to survive for significantly longer.

Why Is This Better and Worse?

Spoiler: Pros and Cons of New Mirror Image

Pros:

• Clones no longer perish on a single hit and can be active more frequently
• Clones feel more like actual dummies than just a carbon copy of Mantle of the Bovemist
• Cooldown is not static and fluctuates depending on the Clones you have active

Cons:

• Potentially overpowered when taking the new Cooldown into account
• Extremely beneficial to tank builds, especially if they have War Scream buff active from allies
• Clone health on Stronger Clones may be too much of an increase

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Red Ability 2: Echo

Echo: Clones will now mimic your Spells and Abilities, expending no extra Mana. Your damage is reduced by -20% for every Clone active

Overview:

Spoiler: New Echo Overview

A)

This hasn't changed from how Clones function now.

B)

As I mentioned previously, Clones have a static -60% (or -40%) damage reduction, and this is bad because your damage is still nerfed the same amount no matter how many Clones are active. This simply gives each Clone its own damage reduction value to make it consistent and not punish the player too harshly for having active Clones.

Example: having 3 Clones active will reduce your damage by -60%, but having 2 Clones active will only reduce your damage by -40% (and -20% for having 1 Clone active).

Upgrades:

Spoiler: Upgrades for New Echo

Upgrade 1: Stronger Clones

Stronger Clones: Each Clone now has 40% of your Maximum Health and will mitigate 10% of the damage you receive. Your damage is reduced by -7.5% for every Clone active.

The health boost may need to be lowered since 40% sounds like it's possibly too much, but this helps boost the survivability of Clones in the later levels. The damage reduction also works similarly to how Stronger Clones works now (maximum reduction from -60% to -45%). The currently value is -40%, but the reason this change being lower (-45%) is for balancing purposes. Additionally, this ability would be locked behind Forbidden Art.

Why is This Better and Worse?

Spoiler: Pros and Cons of New Echo

Pros:

• Player is not punished for having fewer Clones active

Cons:

• Some may say this hurts DPS, but I think this change is fair given that Clones would be getting a large buff overall

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Red Ability 3: Sacrifice

Sacrifice: If you receive fatal damage and have at least 3 Clones active, they will immediately perish and negate the damage you receive, restoring 35% of your Maximum Health (15m Cooldown).

Overview:

Spoiler: Overview of New Sacrifice

A)

Now I know what you're thinking, this is just Second Chance! And you would be correct. And while there is probably gonna be some controversy surrounding this idea, I think it fits Trickster well. Paladin currently outshines Trickster regarding tankiness, and I believe Trickster should get the similar treatment. Afterall, they're the only 2 tank themed Archetypes (One can make the argument for Ritualist because of Mask of Fanatic). I think giving Trickster a free get-out-of-death's-mansion card is acceptable, given that is has less Base Resistance than Paladin and also doesn't have access to War Scream's defense buff.

There would be no upgrades regarding this ability

Why is This Better and Worse?

Spoiler: Pros and Cons of New Sacrifice

Pros:

• Gives Trickster free death immunity, giving players another option besides Paladin
• Balanced enough to require you having Clones active, so it's not just free death immunity guaranteed

Cons:

• Potentially very overpowered given the new concept of Clones

Other Abilities:

Spoiler: Other Abilities

Ability 1: Delirious Gas

Delirious Gas: When inside Smoke Bomb, deal +30% more damage. You will additionally gain Lure for 20s. While under the effects of Lure, nearby mobs will target you and have increased speed. Additionally, your Clones will mitigate 90% of the damage you receive, but they shall receive +40% more damage.

Overview:

Spoiler: Overview of New Delirious Gas

A)

Because Clones are getting that survivability boost, I think it is acceptable to lower the damage boost that Delirious Gas gives. Lure duration won't change.

B)

Lure won't change how mobs behave. But this gives a new twist on Clones. Because Clones are getting a large buff, this enables Trickster to be quite the powerful Agro taker. This change helps balance it out: Enemies will chase you down but and you'll receive less damage, but as a consequence, your Clones are going protect you and take more damage. Sounds like a fair trade if you ask me. Oh and yes, Lure is still transferable via Hoodwink.

Upgrades:

Spoiler: Upgrades for New Delirious Gas

Upgrade 1: Diversion

Diversion: When killing a Lured enemy, all of your Clones recover 5% of their Maximum Health (5s Cooldown)

I will admit, I'm unsure of how to balance this one. Already having the opportunity to restore Clone health is huge, so this ability may need to just go down the drain entirely due to its overpowered nature. Initially I had intended for this to also restore your own health as well as all of your Clones', but since Clones always mitigate damage you receive, I believe this change was a fair balance. It's also worth noting if you stop holding your weapon, all Clones vanish, so it requires you to choose: Keep your Clones up and hope they can mitigate enough damage? Or use your potion at the cost of sacrificing your defense?

Why is This Better and Worse?

Spoiler: Pros and Cons of New Delirious Gas

Pros:

• Takes advantage of the new Clone buff to help protect the player
• Still lets Trickster be an agro taker

Cons:

• Damage buff may not be enough or possibly too overpowered depending on the situation
• Balancing Diversion to be fair/balanced is tricky

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Ability 2: Sandbagging

Sandbagging: If you receive damage less than 5% of your Maximum Health, your next Spell will cost -30% less mana (5s Cooldown). [Note that this cannot stack]

Overview:

Spoiler: Overview of New Sandbagging

A)

Honestly, there's a lot you can do with Sandbagging, but I figured -spell cost was the best solution because typically tank builds have high spell cost and low damage. Yes this is possibly overpowered, but I think that's unlikely since it's still keeping the 5% health requirement. Additionally, the Cooldown and/or Spell Cost can be modified

Why is This Better and Worse?

Spoiler: Pros and Cons of New Sandbagging

Pros:

• Helps Tank builds deal with Spell Cost
• Easier to trigger than current Sandbagging since new Clones are mitigating damage constantly

Cons:

• Spell Cost reduction may be too abusable

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Ability 3: Stronger Spin Attack

Stronger Spin Attack: Spin Attack deals +20% Damage per spin and blinds enemies for 1s.

Overview:

Spoiler: Overview of New Stronger Spin Attack

A)

Yes this is a Blazing Powder rework but I think it's well deserved because Blazing Powder is so useless in terms of damage. This gives people the Stronger Spin Attack they've been wanting, making the damage actually noticeable.

Why is This Better and Worse?

Spoiler: Pros and Cons for New Stronger Spin Attack

Pros:

• Damage buff is something all players have been wanting, making Spin Attack more viable

Cons:

• Damage could potentially be too much in some situations

That is all I have to offer. The other abilities such as Hoodwink, Sticky Bomb, and Choke Bomb I did not change because I believe they do not need changes. I highly encourage you all to leave your own thoughts and opinions on how Trickster should be changed, but ultimately I'm satisfied with these suggestions because it makes Trickster have much better use of its Clones. I really hope that Trickster will get some sort of change in the future to make it more viable because this Archetype has so much potential

I want to clarify that the purpose of this thread was mainly to focus on Clone reworks. If I see some really good suggestions in the comments that a lot of people agree with, I will happily add it to this thread! Some of my other suggestions (looking at you Sacrifice) may not be the best option, but that's because I was just spitballing some ideas. It's impossible for a single person to completely rework an Archetype so more opinions are greatly appreciated!
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Edit: Made some adjustments regarding Diversion and added more math for Mirror Image

 

how will lebrons legacy

 

Spoiler: h e

Why is it so big lmao

 

Honestly, I don't like the new sandbagging and the sacrifice.
New sandbagging is just straight up worse version of parry and perhaps if the clone cooldown was individual it would be good enough if it stayed as it is.
I don't like sacrifice because probably it would make trickster too similar to paladin (because it would encourage facetanking instead of utilizing your hoodwink more). Perhaps instead of it, something that would help toying with lure more, like a decoy or something similar to it, to keep the trickster personality more.

 

I do like the idea of having Lure being messed around with especially since that's one of Trickster's main gimmicks. Tbh current Sandbagging is just trash and needs to be made more useful somehow.

And yeah I'm also kinda iffy on Sacrifice. Current Diversion is just...meh for the most part, and I do think that having another Second Chance ruins the incentive of picking Paladin. Might end up changing some suggestions once I get some more feedback

Edit: tbh the main reason I made this thread was JUST to focus on reworking Clones and adjusting Lure to balance it with the new Clone suggestions. The rest of the suggestions are kinda extra so those are not as well thought out and may be completely unnecessary changes. The more I think about it, I probably wouldn't give Trickster Sacrifice and keep that exclusive to Paladin

 

Sacrifice >>> second chance

it fits a trick based archetype so much better than paladin. Second chance should get an overhaul while trickster gets this.

 

Yeah this is kinda why I thought of it. Paladin gets a substantial defense boost compared to Trickster so the likelihood of triggering Second Chance is really slim.

I would still prefer if Second Chance protected a nearby ally from death but that's a different topic.

Initially I had an idea to make the player immune to damage for like 2-3s every 20s as long as they had 3+ Clones active but that felt a little too overpowered so I scrapped that idea

 

Nice post, and I've seen ideas similar to some of these like the sacrifice one suggested in assassin fix ideas hub (discord), but not rly improved upon or elaborated either

 

Bump because I spent way too long on this for it to become irrelevant this quickly lol

 

Don't let le Trickster die bump bump

 

bump bump bump cus we need this

 

No assassin buffs let's cope lads

 

bumpers online ability tree man for the win

 

Yes please. My friend finally got his first class leveled up (assassin) and now is suffering because all assassin builds and archetypes are garbage.

 

buff assassin

 

Having played trickster... yeah, it needs a rework.
So I fought Solar Vanguard to switch out my build by converting Clockwork to Souflare, and here's what my experience was like:
1. Vanish and suddenly appear surrounded by extremely unconvincing clones, cast smoke bomb, deal about 5k damage, get absolutely wrecked despite my build being focused on tanking hits.
2. Run away, hide, repeat from 1 until second phase.
3. Second phase has been triggered. I am rapidly reduced to about 1/4 health, partially because of geysers that deal true damage based on max health, which feels a little bit target-y to me, honestly, because it undermines the fact that my build is supposed to be extremely tough.
4. Run away, use a potion, get skewered by attacks from an absurdly fast Vanguard literally across the room, dash away, THEN get my vanish back, wait 30 more seconds to mirror image to refresh again now that I'm at 90%, deal maybe 20k damage at max before having to repeat.

The real complaints I have are:
1. Definitely not helpful enough as a tank. Clones should be either expendable, tough or indestructible, and shouldn't force randomization into a player's health just because they want to be a tank who can stab things.
2. Definitely not convincing enough as an illusionist. Clones should be convincing and possibly draw aggro.
3. There are so, so many ways this could be accomplished. Having clones in a random pattern after leaving vanish and being consistent in relative location would make the clones a thousand times more convincing.
The confusions I have are:
1. How am I creating clones? Shadow magic, probably, because there's not much else. Maybe throw in some fire energy like how in Avatar: The Last Airbender, Jong Jong can use his firebending to create a false duplicate of himself. Either way, there are two options:
I. Make clones INTANGIBLE. This means that they don't block projectiles, they don't have damage pop-ups, but they still draw aggro at least one time. This makes sense because an attack would pass right through an illusion.
II. Make clones FRAGILE. This means that they block projectiles and probably have an ability or two triggered on-death, i.e. Last Laugh. They can take a single hit before being destroyed, but in return, they need to be expendable - if I can't treat my clone buddies as a resource the way a real evil trickster mastermind should, then we have a problem. If the clones are FRAGILE, they need to be replaced with a short cooldown; maybe as short as five seconds per clone.
III. Make clones FORTIFIED. This means that they block projectiles, and can take multiple hits before being destroyed.
2. Why wouldn't you have clones draw aggro (other than the obvious iT's hArD to CoDe)? It would
I. be really cool because you can be like "hahaha, mob, i actually tricked you and now you die!"
II. play to the trickster's recurring theme of being tricky; if I'm successfully fooling my opponent, why are they still yeeting literally every piece of junk they are carrying including themselves directly at me? Also, putting Lure on non-boss enemies is kind of really useless because if the enemy isn't a boss they die super fast anyways.
III. Allow Trickster to have a slightly more unique niche, as referred to by its archetype label saying "Tricks" instead of "Resilience". This niche would be redirecting enemy targeting, over and over, in order to not only confuse the wits out of them but also minimize the damage drawn by allies, so that you can dodge and weave and even vanish without worrying that your allies are going to get aggro'd and die to death, leaving you to solo the leftover mess.

 

Couldn't agree more with every point made here

 

this is funny and absolutely correct

 

Make echo not affect main attack as well :(
As an exploited assassin the damage reduction hurts dps A LOT, and I don't really see why it reduces main attack as well, given that clones only mimic spells (correct me if im wrong)

Also it is called "trickster" but all clones do are just... following you? Like the mantle of the bovemists thing in paladin?
And not to also mention that it hurts your eye when using spells like spin attack, and sometimes the clones blocks your view and it is VERY annoying

 

bump
Trickster is a lot of fun for me, my favourite archetype of the Assassin. Shadestepper is fun for the max damage you can get and Acrobat for flying but Trickster is such a unique concept for how an Assassin would be a frontline tank but the clones at this stage don't feel like they help you tank but instead extend your hitboxes. While the Trickster's features are crowd control and tricks and the former is fulfilled with Mimic and Forbidden Art, the tricks aspect doesn't seem to shine but that's just aesthetics but the tankiness/frontline aespect of the clones is very small. These changes would benefit being a frontline Assassin and make Trickster the tanking archetype it wants to be.