Preview of Upcoming Changes to Combat Escape AA Abilities

[Trilo]

Preview of Upcoming Changes to Combat Escape AA Abilities

We felt it appropriate to offer context for these changes while taking a brief review of the history of escape AA abilities.

The first of these abilities was implemented in Shadows of Luclin with the intent of letting Rogues escape a bad situation and was balanced by having a relatively long reuse time. The team considers the ability to escape death a very powerful asset.

The second escape AA ability was given to Bards in Planes of Power with instantaneous reuse and was balanced by charging a significant amount of mana, historically a very limited resource for the Bard class. This resulted in improving a Bard's ability to pull important NPCs out of a group in ways that was traditionally handled by classes with feign death. Just like escaping death for many classes, the team considers the ability to split mobs more quickly as a very powerful tool for pulling classes.

Several expansions later Monks were given Imitate Death, many expansions later Enchanters obtained Self Stasis, and during the two subsequent expansions every class gained access to an escape ability with the sole exception of Beastlords.

The proliferation of a once highly limited ability without its initial heavy restrictions was partially what prompted the changes during the 2015 update to help ensure that player power remains in a reasonable place versus the difficulty of the content.

Fundamentally, a button that you press in a dire situation that is intended to save your character's life 'should work'. The fact that many classes have a button that has a 10% chance to do nothing when activated isn't consistent and obviously causes a great deal of frustration. Additionally, having different maximum levels of opponents that you can escape from on a per class basis leads to inconsistencies we haven't been happy with.

It is for these reasons that all classes' escape abilities will now have a 100% chance to succeed on targets up to 5 levels higher than the caster. We believe that allowing these abilities to function in a consistent and reliable manner is going to make for a better experience.