So, I’ve played since the game came out (as a thief), and my absolute favorite build (and always used build) was dodge roll. I’ve tried a few variations of it, but the key was being able to dodge whenever I wanted, due to constant vigor uptime (vigor on heal, steal, vigor runes, running D/D, and returned endurance on roll).
The update changed the return endurance trait in two ways.
1.) It now only activates when you successfully evade something. I don’t really have an issue with this, since all it does is encourage skills (and discourages you from running caltrops on dodge and spamming them. Despite loving that, I’d be fine with losing them.)
2.) Now, you get vigor back instead of returned endurance.
My issue lies with the second change. Because I traited into vigor so heavily before, this doesn’t really help me – like at all. I already have around 80% uptime on vigor, this might finish the rest of it – but even another 20% vigor uptime doesn’t make up for before. This also removes thief’s ability to dodge roll potentially 3 times quickly – which is one of the major advantages to the build. It allowed thief something other classes didn’t have, the ability to dodge roll a 3-hit combo with potentially bad CC. (think, Ham-Bow warrior in PvP, or the shockwaves from the molten duo fractal boss). Running dodge roll used to (and still does) take a good deal of your traits sunk into just the ability to dodge more, but now the return is significantly worse than before. Nevermind that you can potentially lose all of your benefit (vigor can be stolen, before you couldn’t lose the returned endurance) – but the vigor being stronger and vigor on evade doesn’t make enough of a difference.
Personally I feel like the endurance returned on dodge was a good system – even if you have to successfully evade an attack for it. Add skill certainly, but even a skilled player can not evade well with this. It might not be bad as-is for say, S/P – where you have pistol whip for a long evade. But on Daggers or pistols (and any combination of them), you’re left out in the cold. I appreciate the changing around to try and make it balanced – but the dodge roll traits just seem worthless to me now.