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How viable this class would be? Rogue is a damage-focused class and Paladin is a tank or a supporter, but the ability to buff myself, therefore increasing DPS looks promising. What attributes and abilities are recommended? Is there a soulbound greatsword?

Concept Basically a tanky dps build utilizing Tuotilo's Palm and Stalker's Presence spear that zaps in the middle of melee and proccing Street Fighter buffs as much as possible. Stacking crit is important for triggering Heartbeat Drumming/Swift Flurry + spear upgrades to land multiple hits. Monk inspirations and Rogue passives are our friends. There are 2 versions of the build I had in mind; Assassin with Backstab passive/gear support and the Streetfighter version presented in this thread. Shattered Pillar seems like a good splash as I prefer it over drug-addled Nalpacza monks (micromanaging drugs is a bit tedious for me, no matter how powerful it is). This is a RP build, so stats are not optimized as I'm not really a min-maxer. The build is currently in testing phase in Veteran mode, so I may update it a bit later as I don't have much time to play. Gameplay Buff up with Swift Strikes -> position yourself to get flanked -> Thunderous Blows -> Spam Torment's Reach -> Blind dangerous foes -> lock down and kill casters with Shadow Step (flavor skill, could be useful). Enervating Blows and Rogue debuffs make sure you land Deathblows with relative ease. Overview Class Street Fighter/Shattered Pillar Race Human (Humans are best Street Fighters IMO) Culture Aedyr (Anything works) Background Merchant (Decent RP bonuses) Difficulty Veteran (still testing) Full Party (could work solo) Stats 13 Might 12 Constitution 13 Dexterity 16 Perception 14 Intelligence 10 Resolve As you can see, the stats are pretty spread out, but that is how I envision character attributes for RP reasons. Feel free to modify them as you wish, just make sure you don't neglect PER and never dump INT, I'll explain why; STR - an additive damage bonus, no healing or spells to augment, so feel free to drop it a bit CON - couple of points never hurt, especially on higher difficulties. You can live with 10 if you feel confident DEX - a good dps attribute, but with Swift Strikes/Street Fighter speed bonuses it feels somewhat redundant PER - most important stat. big roleplay/detection, crit and hit bonuses (important for proccing extra attacks) INT - don't dump it. Useful for RP, also for buff duration and Torment's Reach damage radius (our only AoE) RES - could be dropped I guess, but i tend not to go below 10. Also roleplay heavy stat As explained above, Perception is top stat. Works well with spear +5 acc and ensures hits/crits. Also, our companions PER sucks (Maya Rua is an exception), so it's good to have for looting and detecting traps. INT is important here both for buff/debuff duration and for TR's reach (heh). It makes monk inspirations last longer, keeping our rotation simpler without frequent rebuffs which can be annoying. Everything else can be subject to a change. Skills Focus mostly on Mechanics and Stealth, with only couple points to Athletics. On a Passive skill side I picked Insight/Dipomacy, with couple points to Streetwise (RP reasons, frequent checks). Mechanics - you all know how important it is in this game Stealth - good for stealing and avoiding fights. Buffs Stalker's Patience damage (by a small amount, nerf bat hit it pretty hard) Athletics - frequent checks and a nice heal for sticky situations Insight - frequent checks, very useful Diplomacy - same as Insight Streetwise - frequent checks, adds to RP flavor Talent progression LVL 0 Sneak Attack, Wounds, Transcendent Suffering LVL 1 Escape, Swift Strikes LVL 2 Lesser Wounds LVL 3 Fast Runner LVL 4 Two Weapon Style*, Blinding Strike LVL 5 Dirty Fighting LVL 6 Weapon and Shield Style* LVL 7 Torment's Reach, Confounding Blind LVL 8 Swift Flurry LVL 9 Riposte LVL10 Persistent Distraction, Duality of Mortal Presence LVL11 Thunderous Blows LVL12 Shadow Step/Tumbling LVL13 Raised Torment, Deep Wounds LVL14 Enervating Blows LVL15 Uncanny Luck LVL16 Iron Wheel**, Slippery Mind LVL17 Turning Wheel** LVL18 Improved Critical LVL19 Deathblows, Heartbeat Drumming LVL20 *take your pick* * - having both TW style and W&S style benefits Tuotilo's Palm (benefits from Transcendent Suffering!) as it is considered both shield and weapon ** - having both Turning and Iron Wheel adds to versatility, depending whether you tank or dps Gear Weapons Set 1: Stalker's Patience/Tuotilo's Palm (pierce/blunt) Set 2: dual Sabres or Sabre/Dagger (slashing) Head Blackblade's Hood, Fair Favor (Sabres) Chest DoC Breastplate, Garari Cuirass, Fleshmender Accesories Up to you Here, hope you like it!

...or are they mutually exclusive? I plan on running Streetfighter/Shattered Pillar using Stalker's Patience and Tuotilo's Palm shield for a healthy mix of offense and defense (Persistent Distraction, Thunderous Blows, Swift Strikes, Ripostes/BT), seems nice on paper. Anyone has any info whether or not those 2 skills can be used simultaneously?

Few suggestions on the rogue abilities tree, feel free to leave you're own ideas. I really dislike the fact that the rogue get something like 7-8 differents attacks skills. It feel really too similar, and the cost of some abilities feel off too. Keep the passives. Don't touch at : Escape, crippling strike, blind strike, finishing blow & smokeveil and their upgrades. Remove ring the bell & withering strike. Shadowing beyond : replace invisibility by swift inspiration, 2 guiles cost. Next upgrade add the invisibility for 3 guiles Shadow step : 2 guiles the first upgrade. Smoke cloud : detach from smoke veil, cost 1 guile. Both upgrades can be taken and give you new ability at 2 guiles (like they are). Or remove smoke cloud and just keep the two upgrades as separate abilities. Merge coordinated positioning & sap. When you switch position with an enemy you confuse him. Increase range and 2 guiles cost? Upgrade same as perplexing sap. Gambit : increase cost to 6. Even if you double crit, the ability cost some guile and make spamming it unwanted (diminish return). High risk high reward. If you double critic you have a superbe attack for 2 guiles, if you miss/dont critic you lose 6 guiles. New buff abilities : Poison : cost 1-2 guiles. For x sec, all your weapon attacks add a DOT to the target (x raw or corrode dmg). Upgrade to more dmg or add weaken affliction (replace toxic strike and one handed ring the bell, work with all your attack abilities). Reckless assault : 1-2 guile cost. For x sec you have strong & + action speed, but a deflection malus & take more dmg (too easy to offset the deflection malus?). Upgrade : replace strong with tenacious (+ 2 pen). other possible abilities : Throw knife : low dmg med range attack with high chance to interrupt. Upgrade with a dot or an affliction. Fan of knifes : work like wizard ghost blades. DMG + hobbled. upgrades to a 240 or 360 attack, or add a bleeding like arterial strike.

Anyone knows if this is possible? I haven't seen any table that modify runspeed per class yet but I might have missed something. Only one I've seen is the global function to raise "walking speed" but nothing for stealth. Any insights would be greatly appreciated

So I'm considering a Pathfinder: Rogue(Trickster or nothing) + Druid(shifter) as my watcher and main tank The plan is to abuse the hell out of the free heals from shifting forms to just face tank all the damage while using rogue abilities to setup sneak attacks on target. Did a quick test and trickster's illusion "spells" are treated as abilities for the purpose of shifter's penalty, hurrah for 10 free instant heals and mirror image+riposte Looks decent on paper, but the paper leaves out some information I'm hoping to get from people around here First and most important, Does the heal from form shifting scale, and if so from what? I assume might since might scales all the other healing, but is there anything else, Character level(ideal but not expected) Power level(expected) or Max HP(Could be fun). This is more or less the crux of the build and I'd hate to be level 14 and find out my main trick is no longer keeping up. Second, do passives that don't specifically mention shifted forms effect shifted forms? the big ones here being riposte, dirty fighting and two-weapon style(every form available to shifter dual-wields) Lastly, any suggestions on druidic spells? Stat spread is going to be very INT heavy for shift duration, and very perception heavy for landing afflictions and its relying on a lot of passives and rogue tools, in the build I kinda spec'd out there's only room for ~7 druid spells beyond what's auto-granted so gotta be very judicious on which ones i pick. side note: which wildstrike element holds up best throughout the game?

Assassinate passive (rogue subclass) appears to have a max range, at least for spell casting(multiclass wiz/rogue). It works on multiple targets with AoE if I'm up close, but from far away it fails (checking damage logs) it appears to effect all spells so far. Edit: it might actually only be working on stealthed crits for the damage, the pen and accuracy always show up.

I would first like to say that the stealth revamp and the vision cone in deadfire is miles ahead of what we had in PoE1. The system helps a lot in making rogues and sneaking more immersive, and backstabbing is an actual thing now unlike in the previous game where it was basically an afterthought. That said, I think rogues here have another problem - too many similar skills. Hobbling strike, Blinding strike, Strike the Bell, Finishing Blow, Withering Blow, Sap, Gambit and Vanishing Strike. That's 8 attack abilities not counting the various upgrades for most of them. I'm pretty sure most players don't need them, and some are pretty much wasted space by the time you get to them (why would you ever use sap). You might say how it gives rogues options, but not really, most of these work pretty much the same and are boring in effect, with the exception of finishing blow and vanishing strike. Gambit single-handedly trivializes any kind of choice once you unlock it. But if you nerf gambit then you're just forced to use a combination of the other strikes. If you ask me, we should drastically reduce the damage of some of the strikes (strike the bell, sap, withering blow for example) give them some sort of utilitary role, or replace them completely. Sap could stun the target but do 10% damage. Put in rogue-specific poisons that are more effective, cheap or can be used per-encounter like poison that lowers stats, armor, defenses or fighting capabilities of stricken targets. Put in skills that promote gun/sword combos. For example a Ranged or Melee attack that does not have recovery as long as you used the opposite weapon before it. I'm pretty sure I'm late to the party when it comes to these suggestions, but maybe for a bigger patch or expansion there's hope.

Hi all, I enjoy playing rogues, and with new multiclass system introduced in Deadfire I decided to put together something a bit different. I'm sure someone here already done it in the beta, but I'll give it a go anyways; It's a support/riposte tank build that uses Paladin passives (Darcozzi for RP reasons) to stack defenses, and Rogue for Persistent Distract/Riposte combo with nice damage boost via Streetfighter. Skill/attribute wise the character is built for wide range of dialogue options for a richer gaming experience, not just utility/effectiveness in combat. Specifics: Darcozzi Paladini/Streetfighter Human Aedyr Merchant MIG: 15 CON: 12 DEX: 10 PER: 9 INT: 15 RES: 17 Take note that I'm not a min-maxer at heart, nor is riposte the main source of damage since it's a bit lackluster atm, as I hear. Skills points should focus on Mechanics (secondary Athletics) as active, and Insight/Diplomacy (some Streetwise points) as passive. Avoid taking +engagement slots (except Distraction) to get flanked more easily for damage bonus (dagger modal will nullify the penalty). Aura of choice is +acc/crit, let Pallegina handle the armor boosting one Weapon setup is dagger for modal + X (either sword or any other slow 1H for stronger ripostes/full attacks). I'll expand on the talents a bit later because I'm at work Let me know what you think about this concept. Thx in advance

At first I started a Trickster/Soulblade main character, but I don't really like the trickster so now I'm thinking of starting a Devoted/Soulblade or an Assassin/Soulblade. Which one would make more sense to partner up with a swashbuckler (fighter/rogue) Edér if I'll focus on one handed style with swords and medium armor? Assassin/Soulblade and Fighter/Rogue has multiple ways to Flank enemies with smokes, blinding attacks and cipher debuffs, but a Devoted/Soulblade generally looks more viable with Disciplined B., Confident Aim and Cleaving Stance. Basically my planned attributes for both would be Might15, Con10, Dex16, Per15, Int10, Res12

For Deadfire I'm planning on importing my PoE character, an arquebus-wielding ranger with a bear companion. I found the Apprentice Sneak Attack talent in PoE to be great. My question is two-fold: Firstly, to be dealing out the damage, should I be looking at playing a Scout for the Sneak Attack and other abilites or would a single-class ranger work fine? Secondly, does a Scout play much differently to a Ranger? What's the "feel" of both options? Thanks heaps, TheDogProfessor

Hi there! I'm new to PoE and looking for some advice/answers to questions regarding the rogue and party play, without getting spoilers on skills/spells/story. I started playing yesterday (on normal for now) and chose the rogue as my main character. I want a character for high single target DPS with the ability to pick locks, sneak, disarm traps and strike from the shadows. Classical RPG-rogue. I read through some explanations regarding stats and attributes and I think I understand most of it already. My questions though are: - Is sneaking to enemies and striking them from the back with bonus damage a thing later on? I managed to do it in the intro, when that fighter girl from the caravan engaged first and I wonder if it's that doable later on as well - Might or Dex as main attribute for a dagger using stealth melee rogue? Seems like Dex with extreme high attack speed could be super powerful against casters with all the interrupts I'm planing on playing with a party, as it's my first playthrough. I know there will be some companions to recruit, but I also know that I can "create" my own mercenary guy. Is it possible to set up a group with all self made characters instead of using the predefined people you meet? If so, I would love to have following party setup and would like to know if it's possible/viable: Paladin with 2H as an off tank/supporter to bind 1-2 enemies and help the party. Fighter with 1h+shield as Main Tank with lots of defense and the ability to bind as many enemies as possible. Classical "Mage" with lots of offensive power and AoE, maybe a summon as well? "Support Caster" (not sure what class, pls recommend something): Should have some CC, some buffs, some debuffs, maybe summon? Offense/defense doesn't matter. Priest as Healer/Buffer/Debuffer My char (Rogue) as pure single target DPS. - Do I need to focus on all defensive stats or is reflex enough to not get hit by AoE frequently with my rogue as the two tanks should ideally tank everything? - If my rogue uses daggers, should I focus on axe/mace for my tanks to have more ways to get around enemies DR? - Is the religion thing on Paladins/Priests important for their skillset or is it more a flavor thing? Thank's in advance and cheers!

“Scorpions are nature’s way of saying, ‘Screw you! I’m gonna combine lobsters, spiders, wasps and nightmares!’” This build provides a tanky Rogue, who also has high single target damage and produces his own status effects through the Stun on crit version of Cladhalíath. Dexterity and Intellect have been pitched so that you can keep an enemy permanently stunned so long as you score a hit on the Stun vs. Fortitude roll that results from a melee crit. In this way, you can have high damage against a single target – while simultaneously disabling other enemies through periodic Riposte stuns as well, giving this build a nice offensive-defensive balance. Hopefully this should subvert the idea a Rogue is a weak class, with defences that are comparable to other solo tank builds but compared to some a great deal more damage. While the Yellow Flash build also uses Riposte mechanics to great effect, it seems more pitched towards the classic tank style of grinding enemies down with a wounding weapon rather than aiming for high single target damage. The Flaming Porcupine build seems to be much of the same idea as this build, but seems to have weaker defences and a slightly different focus (use of a two-handed weapon for one). As such, I think this build is distinct enough to warrant its own write-up. Why the name the Sprightly Scorpion? Because scorpions are well protected and defensive, Cladhalíath provides a stunning sting, and it’s sprightly because its attacks are fast enough to chain Stun. And because I said so! I will say this build is ENTIRELY UNTESTED (apart from the Stun-locking mechanics, which I've just had a play with, making sure the Stun-locking works). I hope to get around to testing it soonish (after Christmas maybe) but currently lack the time. I’ll update the build when or/if I finish testing it (or if one of you kind people do first), however I don’t anticipate their being any problems in terms of solo viability with the build. Without further ado… =================================== The Sprightly Scorpion =================================== Difficulty: Untested, but will test on expert PotD solo, no respec, with full upscaling -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Rogue -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Wild Orlan -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Old Valia (Colonist) -------------------------------------------------------------- Starting Attributes: MIG: 17 CON: 15 DEX: 10 PER: 5 INT: 19 RES: 12 Final Attributes: MIG: 21 (Gift from the Machine, Garodh’s Chorus) CON: 16 (Rymrgand’s Boon) DEX: 14 (Viettro’s Formal Footware) PER: 8 (Elryn’s Jacket, Song of the Heavens) INT: 26 (Gwyn’s Band of Union, Forum resting bonus) RES: 16 (Siegebreaker’s Gauntlets) -------------------------------------------------------------- Important skills: Survival 16, Lore 9, Mechanics 5 (boostable to 10). This gives third stage survival accuracy bonus for +20 accuracy against anything but kith, as well as access to things like Scrolls of Confusion and Paralysis in tougher fights. Skill point allocation: -------------------------------------------------------------- Abilities and Talents: Abilities: 1 – Crippling Strike 3 – Reckless Assault 5 – Deep Wounds 7 – Dirty Fighting 9 – Adept Evasion 11 – Riposte 13 – Deathblows 15 – Withering Strike Talents: 2 – Veteran’s Recovery 4 – Weapon and Shield Style 6 – Weapon Focus Peasant 8 – Vicious Fighting 10 – Wound Binding 12 – Deep Pockets 14 – Superior Deflection 16 – Deflecting Assault Quest Talents: Blooded Hunter Dozen’s Luck Dungeon Delver Gift from the Machine Rymyrgand’s Boon Song of the Heavens Scale-Breaker The Merciless Hand --------------------------------------------------------------- Weapons and Equipment (listing only new enchantments): Weapon set 1: Cladhalíath (Stunning, Vicious, Superb, Durgan-Refined, Freezing Lash) and Badgradr’s Barricade (Superb, Durgan-Reinforced) Weapon Set 2: Alternate Stunning or Overbearing weapon, Little Saviour (Durgan-Reinforced, Legendary) Armor: Elryn’s Jacket (Legendary, Durgan-Reinforced) Neck: Cape of the Master Mystic Belt: Looped Rope Rings: Gwyn’s Band of Union and Ring of Protection Hands: Siegebreaker Gauntlets Head: Garodh’s Chorus (Retaliation) Feet: Viettro’s Formal Footwear --------------------------------------------------------------- Weapon accuracy and defenses: Cladhalíath accuracy 100 Def/Ref/Fort/Will 110/108/108/118 Calculations: Buffed defenses: Def/Ref/Fort/Will 160/168/170/148 Calculations: -------------------------------------------------------------- Playstyle overview: Using Cladhalíath, every crit on an enemy triggers a Stun vs. Fortitude roll. Stun itself gives a -30 Deflection debuff, meaning that once an enemy is stunned crits against that enemy should occur extremely frequently (with the Deflection debuff, but also with 40% hit-to-crit conversion from Vicious/Dirty Fighting and Durgan-Reinforcement). This provides more Stun vs. Fortitude rolls, which so long as they result in a hit themselves will result in the enemy being permanently stunned with the 14 Dex 15 Int combo. Cladhalíath itself can also be made Vicious as the second enchantment, dealing an extra 20% damage to stunned enemies. With a permanent Stun effect, triggering criteria for Deathblows becomes trivial. Both Withering Strike and Sever the Soul themselves debuff Fortitude through the Weakened affliction, meaning you will easily trigger both Stun and Weakened in a single attack opening up Deathblows. Crippling Strike and Figurine flanking, as well as occasional Eyestrikes from Elryn’s Jacket, give enough other means for you to get Deathblows easily in a single encounter. With the previously mentioned massive -30 Deflection debuff from Stun, Badgradr’s Barricade also really starts to shine, with every Bash crit resulting in a Thrust of the Tattered Veils, which itself targets the massively debuffed Deflection and is effected by Deathblows. This combination of effects against a stunned enemy gives you great single target damage, while also being defensively bulky. Riposte, Retaliation and Deep Wounds provide an excellent means of crowd control. Riposte itself gives free attacks to surrounding melee enemies on misses and grazes, made viable by the build’s good Deflection, giving you a chance to Stun these enemies with Cladhalíath for a few of seconds. As these enemies are entirely immobile during this time, this reduces the overall damage you’ll take from a melee group, making it an indirect defensive maneuver. Deep Wounds and Retaliation ensure that all melee enemies are constantly taking some raw damage, making them much weaker when you get around to targeting them specifically. Eyestrike from Elryn’s Jacket has nice synergy with Riposte, Retaliation and Deep Wounds as essentially melee enemies are always at risk of something (miss/graze -> Riposte chance, hit/crit -> Eyestrike chance, all the while taking Deep Wounds raw damage and Retaliation hits). When an enemy has been blinded, their accuracy debuff means that they’ll now tend towards more misses and grazes, and as such trigger even more Ripostes. For spellcasters, the extremely strong Adept Evasion (75% reflex grazes to misses, 50% reflex hits to grazes) coupled to your reasonable Reflex score means their attacks really aren’t much of a concern. When you couple this to the 20% spell reflection from Durgan-Reinforced Badgradr’s Barricade, and the chance they also have of suffering Eyestrike, they can be comfortably left until the end of combat when you’ve dealt with the melee enemies. Hopefully this rundown should have given you an idea of the build’s high damage, coupled to some great defenses that marry some of the best qualities of a Rogue and a tank. -------------------------------------------------------------- I’ve provided a few other little sections below, for anyone interested… Attribute score choice: Race and equipment choices, damage calcs: Talent and ability choices: Early game equipment: Big boss advice: Pairing for party play: -------------------------------------------------------------- And that’s that! I hope you’ve enjoyed the build, and even if it isn’t playtested I think it’d be worth a try. If anyone manages to give it a playtest before me, let me know and I’ll update the build with your findings. Have a nice day! EDIT: Re-tested Cladhalíath, and found the previous attributes I listed to be way off. The new set work fine to chain Stun on Stun roll hits.

Hey guys. So when the game was released I tried to make a rogue with stealth with a full party and got bored fairly quickly. Reason is, stealth kind of sucked back then, and so did backstab, so I gave up half-through the campaign. There was no glorious chomp from BG2. I want to give the game another go, having both expansions, and I was hoping if someone could bring me up to speed with what's good/viable with melee rogues on PotD and non-merc companions. Thanks

Hi Guys, First of all, let me thank you Obsidian for releasing such an awesome game, that probably makes everyone like me (former player of Infinity engine based RPGs) being able to step by back into childhood by playing this kind of wonderful games ! I stopped playing Pillars Of Eternity like a year ago, until I learnt about backers campaign on DeadFire, which just made me want to play it again ! (By the way, I personally do not care about the actual Deadfire release date, but please try to polish this game as much as you can : it's just going be an awesome game !) After getting back to Pillars of Eternity, I realized that made a lot of different runs that cover most aspects of the game, until I learnt about "The Ultimate" achievement that is probably the only thing that I was missing. So I decided to try it out ! Of course I could not try it with something else than a rogue, because it has always been my favorite class ! To push it a bit farther I decided to start the achievement with 3 base constitution and tried to do the run with the mindset of reducing its overall duration as much as I could (the idea behind it, was to allow some of you to try it without spending too much time). After countless (really countless) hours of strategy fine tuning, I can proudly announce that I could get it done. You can find the full run on YouTube : -- Do not watch it if you don't want to get spoiled! -- The full run lasts about 10 hours. You will be able to see that the idea was to avoid fights as much as possible to save some time and also try to work on pulling from fights only what is necessary to get the achievement. The goal of putting very low constitution as a rogue is to be able to kill opponents before they can actually hit you back ! I tried to apply splitting strategy on most fights, because as a rogue you can land very high damage but mainly on a single enemy. I hope you will enjoy watching it. If you try it by yourself and get stuck at some point, don't hesitate to ask for advices ! Let me know if you could get "The Ultimate" achievement by following it ! /Cheers

I realize that this is my first runthrough of the game and I'm on easy, so, I shouldn't worry about it too much. However, I'm feeling frustrated with it losing endurance really fast and fainting too much. Not even Durance (heh on that guys name) had that much of an issue. In easy battles, he's fine, but on more challenging battles, it's a real problem, and I feel like I've built it wrong, using it wrong, or both. The build that I tried to go with is the caleb rogue build in this steam guide (which is out of date however, and is similar to the don juan build on this forum. Currently level 5 (though not far from 6) race: Hearth Orlan Background: Old Vailia, Aristocrat Attributes without equipment (includes race and background bonus though): M: 12 C: 10 D:10 P: 19 (because rogue) I: 16 (because smart aristocrat) R: 11 Skills (I noticed that the builds listed in here rarely go into the skills, but I'll list anyway): Stealth: 6 Athletics: 1 Lore: 3 Mechanics: 5 (probably could have bumped it up one level or two) Survival: 1 Talents: Weapon Focus: Soldier Two-Handed style Abilities: Crippling Strike Crucible of the Soul (automatic Watcher ability I think) Dirty Fighting Minor Threat (Orlan racial ability) Reckless Assault Second Wind Sneak Attack Speaker to the Restless (Watcher ability) Equipment: head: none (though I do have the Footpad's Hood which I got recently and I could equip that) Neck: Minor Cloak of Protection (+5 of reflex, will, and fort. Was trying to improve the endurance problem) Body: Mail Armor Hands: Fulvano's gloves (+2 dex) Feet: none (just realized that I've neglected that, heh) Waist: none Ring/Accessory: Gaun's Pledge (that ring you get from the start) and Minor Ring of Protection (+5 fort, reflex, and will. Again, trying to solve the endurance problem) Weapon/Shield: Fine Spear (Trying to get to that tall grass pike, but don't have the cash atm), Medium Shield (Heater) So, any ideas as to how I can fix the issue of him losing endurance quickly and easily? It's only in the somewhat challenging fights that it's a problem. I'm just a bit frustrated because this is on EASY and I just feel like I'm doing something wrong here.

I wanted to create this thread after debating of rogues once more under following thread : https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/90814-pleading-for-rogue-buff-once-more/ Basically, the current problems of the Rogue are : - Rogue is the least liked class : http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/88890-class-popularity/ - Rogue is usually seen as the least powerful class : https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/88395-what-are-the-most-powerful-classes-in-303/ - Rogue might be a bit single-trick pony, and a bit bland. There are 2 parts in the poll, one for minor tweak for PoE1 content, and one for bigger changes for future PoE2 evolutions. Feel free to express your wishes. You should choose to prioritarize some tweaks or changes over some others. Minor Tweaks : At this phase of the game, it is unlikely to have big changes to current balances. I still believe that a bit of balance to Core rules would be a good thing for the future PoE2, so there still might bit a chance for minor tweaks to happen. I explained why they would be suitable for me in the original thread. Big Changes and Evolutions : For bigger changes, I think they are not likely to happen before PoE2. But there were a lot of nice ideas from the original thread, so I tried to gather them here. I have voluntary separated them from the minor tweaks. The idea behind most of these suggestions (except "Even more Single Target DPS at High level” of course) is also to make rogue a bit more interesting than just a girl/guy that deals big single target damages. So, here are these ideas : --- Even more Single Target DPS at High level: Such as scaling sneak attacks. Single Target DPS is rogue speciality. Let's give him more. This one is pretty straightforward. Some Area of Effect damages: I really could see a rogue using tricks like grenades, even if I feel AoE damages shouldn't be Rogue Speciality. But you may disagree. Specialization toward temporary Single Target DPS Burst: Rogue currently has some very high Single Target DPS for very short time, such as Final Blow and Backstab. You may think future improvement should stress even more this aspect, could it would emphasize rogue's assassin role. Backstab rework for better effects for small weapons: Due to how Backstab mechanism work, it I currently better with big weapons, and even more with firearms. You may think it is unfair, and daggers and stylettos should be the weapon of choice for backstab. This would require a rework on how backstab work, such as better damage multiplicator for small weapons. More ugly and dishonorable tactics : Rogue should be more than brute force. There should have more dirty tricks such as per encounter traps, feints, or more backstab possibility. Dirty tricks should be based on risk & reward mechanism, and should have very powerful effects when you meet their conditions, that could be hard to trigger. More defensive tricks: Rogue should never be tank, but I could see them specialized in temporary or conditional defense. They could be specialized in defense against a single target (THEIR target). They could get bonus defense from ennemies with active status (mirroring sneak attack). I could totally see a swashbucker sub-class being able to execute single-target parry, dodge, and various evasions. More interesting Strikes mechanism: Strikes are currently a bit simple. In many games, Rogue-like class have some kind of combo points or chained strike. Why rogue couldn't have common pool of ressource to manage their strike ? Why can't they have a kind of more interesting mechanism for their attacks ? Special skill with consumable items: Due to their high accuracy, bonus crits and deep wound, rogue are currently one of the top (probably the top) item users. Rogues have always been very good item users in similar games. Therfore, I think they could get a couple of bonus to their item uses, such as trap throwing, bonus with scrolls, fast potion, or “deep pockets” by default… In PoE, all classes already have a kind of “Use Any Items” ability.

This thread became in a discussion about why Rogue are still UP ( https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/90435-player-returning-from-launch-wants-basic-info/ ), Here is a good summary of the problem from another poster : So I decided to create a new thread about possible rogue changes. This also because my previous one ( https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/85541-the-rogue-and-barbarian-polishing-thread/ ) seems to have ended pretty successfully when patch 3.03 was released I suppose it would be a bit late for this kind whining if PoE2 wasn't under development. I guess these changes could be seen as an investment And PoE is still patched from times to times, so... why not ? So my suggestions are below. The idea is that low level abilities are quite OK after patch 3.03. I'm still pleading for a few tweaks, but nothing big. The major changes are for high level ones : Shadow Step and Feign Death. ----- General Changes : Distracted should be listed as Sneak Attack Triggering conditons. Health : Buffed to Endurance x 5. Rogue is supposed to be a martial class. All martial classes have at least x5 health multiplicator. Low Deflection and Endurance is enough hindering for Rogues in my opinion. Currently, rogue is too often the cause of resting, which I find annoying. It would also be an indirect convenience buff for Riposte rogues... EDIT: Invibility shall not immediately stop a fight. ----- Abilities Changes : Crippling Strike : No change Blinding Strike : No change Reckless Assault : No change Escape : No change Dirty Fighting : good ability but lowish numbers Especially compared to One Handed Style recent change (abilities are supposed to be better than talents). Even if One Handed Style is conditionnal. 15% Hit to Crit would be good. (10% Hit to Crit for vicious fighting is enough in my opinion) Riposte : With the current system, it's better to be grazed than missed. Riposte occurence has been described to be a bit too low by the ones who tested it since 3.03, so I think 30% of Riposte for Graze AND Miss would be OK. Finishing Blow : EDIT : The main problem for Finshing Blow for me is that it works the best when the target is almost dead, which it makes it annoying to use. However, multiplicative damages buff is rare enough to be noticeable. I think something like 1x per encounter 2x damages against target under 50% Endurance (x3 with Devastating blows) would be a very nice revamp. (and unconditional Full Attack, +5 Acc and +50% damages as it is now) Deep Wounds : Deep Wounds should stack with themseves. Currently, its damages are very low, escpecially at high levels. Adept Evasion : No change Coordinated Positioning : No change Persistent Distraction : No change (refer to distracted changes) Withering Strike & Fearsome Strike : There have been changes in patch 3.03. That's good but I still find them too weak for their level. My suggestion is simply to make them available at level 7. (This is also to make them consistent with Sap change below). Deathblow : No change Smoke Cloud : EDIT Add 3s of non-cancellable invisibility on Rogue. (also refer to distracted changes) Sap : Okayish, but still too high level compared to its effect. My suggestion is simply to make it available at level 9. Shadow Step : Here comes the great deal. Rogue lack great High level abilities. Let's change this ! EDIT: So, Shadow Step should give non cancellable invisibility for the time it is active instead of +20% damages. Maximum Duration reduced to 6s. Reminder : Backstab bonus damages are applied during invisibility. So it's a big change. Other classes also get some incredibly powerful stuff at high level (Immolation and Twin Arrows noticeably), so I can't see any reason why Rogue wouldn't get something juicy. And Rogue should be the specialist for Spike Single Target DPS anyway. Feign Death : The ultimate Rogue ability, yeah. 10s of auto-incapacitation for an offensive class is not good. Make the Prone Duration Cancellable like Shadow Step has been suggested several time on this forum, and I think it's the best way to improve it too. (Make it fast cast instead of instant cast to avoid abuses). It would also be more reallistic this way. Reminder : Backstab bonus damages are applied during invisibility. This Invisibility is not cancelled by attacking. ----- Talents : EDIT: Shadowing Beyond : Change to 1x per encounter No changes to other talents. That's all. Don't hesitate to make remarks or to suggest additional changes. The point is : the more "reasonnable" is the suggested change, the more likely it is to actually happen.

Greetings, I played the game to the end once (on hard), currently i'm playing a PotD party with an Bleak walker on a future party of 6, but i'm planning a future PotD run (preferable Triple Crown Solo), and so i studied some Rogue builds. Evaluating the rogue abilities and talents i would like to suggest something that was already done with the barbarian abilities. As Barbarians have the Brute Force ability, that make the character target the lesser defense of an enemy bettwen Deflection and Fortitude, i would like to suggest the following ability for a Rogue: Improved Evasion (or any name that comes to mind): Prerequisite: Adept Evasion. By the select of this skill, the rogue become so aware of his surroundings that he become capable of evade attacks instead of block (deflection) them. When this character suffer an incomming melee or ranged attack, use his/her reflex or deflection attribute, whichever is higher, for defense rolls. So, what you ppl out there think of it? Obs: By this suggestion, the talent would be only avaliable on level 8+. Obs2: Adept Evasion should suffer an penalty, if this talent is taken, otherwise rogue would become the ultimate defensive class.

Hello folks. I don't really have much experience with PoE yet other than blasting through it right now on hard with the default companions. I'm not too far into the game but so far it seems a tad too easy. I was thinking of starting an alternate playthrough with a solo character on POTD. I know there are builds out there but it kinda looks like most of them are outdated so I thought I'd ask you guys for some help / recommendations. The classes I'm taking into account are rogue and chanter. Maybe ranger if you convince me but I'd really like the build to be melee. Not really a fan of wizards and such because of the ancient mechanic of rest that should die a long time ago but hey, a man's gotta be open-minded. I'm thinking both rogue and chanter should be more than doable and I could probably figure out some builds on my own but I'm very interested in what you guys think about this. Thanks in advance for any input.

Several martial classes have already been through ability polishing : I’m thinking about Fighter, Ranger and Paladin. That’s because they were a bit UP and drew a lot of complaints. Contrary to these classes, rogues were quite balanced since 1.0 and didn’t draw so much criticism. Therefore, there was never an ability rebalancing patch since release. As a result, I think that a lot of Rogue abilities are currently lacklusters. That doesn’t mean rogue are really lacklusters, They have enough nice abilities to make the class good enough. But most of their builds rely on the same abilities. Since 2.0, Rogue tends to be outclassed by Ranger as ranged (thanks to Twin arrows), therefore melee rogue is probably the best (powergaming) way of using rogues. (By the way, rogues are still good ranged characters. Melee rogues are very good at switching to ranged weapons when necessary, especially for alpha strike. Chuck Norris is not the only one to be able to backstab with an arquebus… ) Pretty much all melee Rogue builds look this way : 1 Blinding strike (or crippling strike, it is a matter of taste) 3 Reckless assault 5 Deep Wounds 7 Finishing blow before WMII, now I think it could be changed to the new Distraction ability. 9 Dirty Fighting 11 Deathblows 13 Sap 15 another stuff, maybe finishing blow if not taken previously, or maybe an evasion ability if one doesn’t like per rest stuff, I don’t really know about Feign Death. If you check at Steam guide http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=416939844 , all proposed builds rely mostly on the abilities above, as most builds on this forum. Improving the other Rogue abilities wouldn’t make the class more powerful, as it would require dropping some currently used abilities. It would just make the class more versatile. Riposte rogue, anyone ? Lot of current abilities are quite fun in theory, but lack a bit of raw power. So here are my Proposal to give Rogue’s abilities a bit more of “Wow” : (The purpose is not to change completely these abilities by the way. I’m not evaluating what rogue could have been. I’m trying to propose “reasonable changes”.) Blinding Strike : good as it is (for a level 1 ability) Crippling Strike : good as it is (for a level 1 ability) Reckless Assault : good as it is Escape : Mobility skills are not bad, but I think 1/encounter mobility skill does not worth spending one of your few ability point. We’re speaking about something that should be more or less comparable to an entire (low) spell level. Escape would be okay as a talent (By the way shadowing beyond would almost deserve to be an ability as it is almost the ultimate Panic Button skill, with some offensive potential…). My suggestion is simple : Escape could be refreshed on kill. There’s a lot of “on kill” effect since 3.0. I believe the “kill and run concept” would be cool, not OP. It is a bit circonstancial for the refresh part, but still better than 1/encounter. Overall, it would be enough for a level 3 ability. Dirty Fighting : not so powerful. 10% hit to crit sounds great only if you played too much Diablo 3. But this and related talent are interesting for some builds or weapons, like Tall Grass, Hour of St Rumbalt, various axes, etc… I don’t think a change is necessary. Riposte : 20% only on miss is basically too low, especially with Rogue’s poor deflection. You need a shield to make it work, which cripples full attack riposte and overall DPS. In my opinion, Riposte should work also on Graze (to keep the feint/counterattack feeling : “you scratched me but it was a trick”). 20% of graze or miss would lead around 10% Riposte with a few deflection buff (double hatchet hipster rogue, anyone ?). I believe it would be enough to make it valuable. It also means that the riposte rate would be still capped at 20% in the very best case, which prevents some abuse. Finishing Blow : I don’t like per rest abilities but I see the point of this one. I think it is ok as it is. Deep Wounds : good as it is Adept Evasion : Sure, Rogue has usually high Per and Dex, but this ability is still very very circonstancial. It works against 17,5% of a specific type attacks (Reflex itself is valued around 1/6 of “all defense”), wouhouh ! D&D equivalent is basically 100% graze to miss. The point is : with 100%, you can build around it, and that’s the most important thing about an ability, even if it’s not crazily powerful. With maxed Dex and Per and 100% adept evasion (and maybe +10 reflex talent), you may throw fireballs and slicken where your rogue stands. Rogue could even be used as decoy with shield (Devil of Caroc decoy, anyone ?). It also makes flanking less constraining for your damage dealing casters. 100% looks big ? Seriously, would a character be really so much tougher with 100% graze to miss reflex ? With only 50% you can’t really build anything around. So my suggestion : change it to 100% ! Coordinated Positioning : Nice ability but not very convenient to use due to really low distance. Distance could scale with level. Like +2m at level 10, 13 and 16. 8m Swap at max level would be cool to use. Even this won’t make this ability OP. Not realistic ? Come on ! Obsidian did add Shadow Step ! Persistant Distraction : good as it is. I like this one, fine debuff, and excellent synergy with deathblows. Withering Strike : Not crazily bad, but Weakness is a weaker status than blind overall, and just a bit better than hobbled. This is too weak for a level 9 ability, especially when compared to level 1 ones. 2/Encounter would be ok. Fearsome Strike : Wouhouhouh ! 2 rather weak status ! Once per rest ! as a level 9 ability ! 1/Encounter would be acceptable, and balanced compared to withering strike. This would be a mix of half of level 1 ability and half of level 9 ability, without the same DPS potential due to more limited full attack number. Still not that great. 15s duration would be my suggestion, in order to distinguish it a bit from withering and crippling strike. It won’t make it OP. Deathblows : Crazy enough as it is. Smoke Cloud : Distraction is a nice small effect, crazy accuracy +20 is nice. But duration and range are just bad, especially when combined. My solution : make it the “Rogue Immolation”, a debuffing cloud moving with the rogue, helping him evading blows. I can imagine that. 3s tick, tick during 15s, 5s debuff duration. No need to change AoE. Keep accuracy bonus as it is. Other solution : a big increase in range and duration. Less fun, but less development cost for Obsidian Shadow Step : Currently, You Shadowstep for a cryptic duration (around 8s), and suddenly come back to your initial position. Barbarian and Fighters do have teleport stuff too (charge and dragon leap) at this level that brings additional utility (AoE damage and/or debuff) to the table. Shadowstep is basically harder to control and less rewarding (no additional effect). Shadowstep comes from Guild wars. In Guild wars, it was a modal (targetable) that could be cancelled to come back to initial position. In POE, Return should be controllable too. Maximum Duration could be a bit more. 10s would be enough to kill a wizard. (By the way I don’t know if duration is affected by Intelligence.) In addition, as a high level ability, a bit more of raw power would be nice too. To reflect the “shadow” part of the Shadow Step, the rogue could receive a bit of “shadow-form defensive buff” for the duration. For example, they could receive 15% Graze to miss, 15% hit to graze, 15% crit to hit (spell-like, non-stackable) as the new Cipher spell. Note for Development : in my opinion, 10s duration and hit conversion would be enough to make the skill fun and good enough, if the development cost for activable return is too high (because it is a totally new effect to program). Sap : good as it is. Not awesome for a level 13, but still nice as CC and debuff. Feign Death : Not bad, but 10s of incapacitation on you damage dealer as its ultimate ability, seriously ? 5s duration for the “prone” part would be OK, I think. Voilà ! Note : there could be the same kind of thread about barbarian, but I think it’s good to have a thread only about rogues.

So, Patch 3.02 is here and we should not expect much evolution to current classes. That is not a bad news, because according to this topic, people are pretty satisfied with current status : https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/85366-class-balance/ Obsidian did a really nice job. However, according to the same topic, 2 little complaints are risen : - Casters (especially wizard and priest) seem to be a bit more powerful than the rest. Let's say that the limited ressource they have and consumables everybody can use tend to reduce the gap. - Rogue and Barbarian are usually said to be a bit UP. Not that much by the way. The reason behind these complaints about these 2 classes are usually : - Barbarians tend to be a bit one trick poney - Rogues have a short head for single target DPS, but no big gap that will justify their lack of other abilities. - Their high level abilities are not so great. They didn't get uber skill from WM I like Twin Arrows, Immolation, etc... Also, Obsidian did admit some abilities still need rework, such as Riposte on the link below (thanks Infinitron): https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/85045-riposte-rogue-viable-potd/page-2 I'm going to propose here some changes. I've tried to make them reflect not only my own opinion, but also other people views. (but yeah, that's subjective). These modifications take into account that Obsidian is currently very unlikey to make big changes to the classes. So I'm not invoking major rework. (at least I don’t think they are “major”.) I also tried to avoid changes on abilities which “could work”, even if not perfect. When answering the poll, keep in mind that it’s unlikely that Obsidian would rework all the named abilities. So don’t hesitate to make some priorities ! For example, I've limited my own anwsers to 5 wishes per class. OK, 5 per class might be too much, but that's my ideas so it's quite hard to disagree with them In this thread, you can find a short description of the proposed changes, but you can find deeper explanations about these changes in: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/85541-the-rogue-and-barbarian-polishing-thread/ (and you can also find reasons why I didn’t touch to other abilities). This thread was positive for me because I got mostly positive review . Don't hesitate if you have any questions or remarks. Thank you for answers and review !

Tested with Borresaine, but I'm assuming all stunning enchantments are identical. Screen cap: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9072xz6q7xj4g1i/borresaine%20stun%20sneak%20attack%20bug.png?dl=0

I've just completed my TCS Speedrun (2:18h, No Glitches), so I thought I would share the build I have used. It's reliable, but not without risks. If you want to reproduce the run, I would suggest studying my video. There is also quite a bit of additional information on my strategies in the video description: Pillars of Eternity - TCS Speedrun (2:18h, No Glitches, Solo, Highest Difficulty, Triple Crown) https://youtu.be/ZtGppK4gWkE (I've just realized that I got the Relative Pacifism achievement for the run, so fewer than 175 NPCs and Creatures are killed!) Concept Push for max. Stealth and compensate Mechanics with the Gloves of Manipulation. The Stealth allows for early completion of Heritage Hill and Cliaban Rilag, opening up high XP Quests in Twin Elms. The final char level is 10, and while Deathblows at level 11 would make the final battle so much easier, its just taking too much time to reach. If you want to make sure the final battle goes right 99% of the time, you can ditch the "Speedrun" part of the build, and just do a few more side-quests before facing Thaos. Build - Moon Godlike, Rogue, Old Vailia, Dissident - Stat distribution: 18 3 18 3 17 18 Abilities - Crippling Strike, Reckless Assault, Blinding Strike, Finishing Blow, Dirty Fighting Talents - Two-Weapon-Style, Shadowing Beyond, Quick Item Slots, Weapon Focus: Soldier, Savage Attack Talent Rewards - The Merciless Hand (+0.3 Crit Multiplier) - Dungeon Delver (+0.1 Crit Multiplier) - Blooded Hunter (+1 Stealth) Skills - Stealth 10, Mechanics 4, Lore 2, Survival 4 Endgame Items - Godansthunyr (Stun on Crit, +Exceptional, +Vessel) - We Toki (Prone on Crit, Exceptional, +Burning Lash, +Vessel) - Aru-Brekr (Movement Speed Increase, +Exceptional, +Might 2, +Crush Proof) - Shod in Faith (Endurance Healing Aura on getting critted) - Rotfinger Gloves (AoE DoT's and Spells to enable Sneak Attacks) - Blunting Belt (More Protection!) - Amulet of Health (More Endurance!!) - Ring of Searing Flames (Good damage buff in the early game, also useful for final battle) - Ring of Unshackling (To negate debuffs in the final battle) Feel free to ask questions or to leave suggestions for improvements.

Hello, sorry if this is something oft repeated. I'm just curious if I need to be doing something differently. So I have a lvl 7 Rogue whose skill level in stealth is at 9. Which seems like it should be adequately high enough to be able to sneak up and backstab enemies. I haven't been able to figure out why I can sometimes sneak up on enemies and sometimes I can't. Are some area's beyond my level or is everything scaled? Enemies have a perception skill and some enemies are just unsneak-up-behindable? My stealth level isn't that great? I am currently in an area where I haven't been able to sneak up on any enemies. I've killed 20 or so enemies and they haven't been to difficult to defeat but it is disappointing as a rogue to not be able to sneak up on enemies. I feel like a unicorn without a horn...so I suppose I feel like a horse, born to unicorn parents. I am perfectly willing to concede that I don't know how to play this game. However, I am still having plenty of fun.