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I have decided to play another run of this game on PotD Upscale, as I had never finished the game on this diffuculty before. I have tried few classes as my PC, mostly melee, as I want to play with my nukers NPCs such as Aloth, Hiravias, and Durance. Choosing another caster would make the party "unbalanced" IMHO of course. Among those classes I had chosen, I found Rogue is the weakest melee attacker. It does nothing good enough, even as a single target damage dealer. I know that many topics like this one had been discussed thoroughly in the past. Creating a new one seem unnecessarily redundant. Yet, I find those topics mentioned are not clear and concise enough. Sometimes, those posts even transformed into a war between Rogue-lovers and the opposite, which I do not mind if it was not dragged too far and too long. Anyway, I hope my new post would suit anyone who wants to find the answer on Google about how good Rogue is on PotD Upscale. Rogue has the worst starting stat. Damage dealer Rogue cannot tank or off-tank. Starting with only 15 deflection, Rogue is the worst tank class in this game, while Fighter starts with 30 deflection and monk has 25. The only way to play melee Rouge is to hit an enemy that had been already engaged by another tank or party member, which seems to be the correct method to play. The problem is that if some archers target you, what would you do ? Walking away, Escape, or Shadaowing Beyond means that you do not attack and thus cause less damage. Not to mention that in order to doing so, you must spend some skill points on non-damage skill first, which is not effective also. This low-deflectioned problem will happen or cause another problem no matter how you distribute your stat points. Most people tend to do it either a glass-cannon way or balanced way. The first one is dumping RES to minimum like 3-4 depending on race, and the other one is keeping RES at 10 so that Rogue might mitigate some damage. The rare one is pumping RES to max and gimping other stats, increasing Rogue survivability. The sad thing is that even at max RES, Rogue still has lower deflection than Monk at 10 RES. Reckless Assault does not stack with Savage Attack. I am not sure who decide the rule like this but it hurts so badly. If these 2 skills stack on each other, Rogue would be considered stronger. The net benefit would be +40% atk damage +3 accuracy -8 deflection, which is pretty good. By the way, in reality, they do not stack, which means that other melee damage dealer classes have a way to get +20% as well. The difference would be that Rogue has +13 accuracy more relatively. Aceeptable ? Let's find out later. Sneak Attack requires a target to be debuffed or flanked. In order to flank an enemy in Pillars of Eternity, 2 characters must attack the same target on the opposite side, which means one character needs to spend time walking to the back side or use some skill while the other one engages in the front. Usually, the one doing the walking is Rogue and tank go in front. This seem to be normal and effective for any melee attacker class since you always want an enemy to be flanked as the stat is lowered. However, in some circumstances, you cannot just walk casually to their back side, because in most situation you need to use a choke point to prevent your party from getting swarmed by a horde of enemies. On PotD Upscale, there are a lot of enemies. Without flanking, you need other party members to debuff for you. They may be required to use certain skill or spell for you at the moment instead of doing their things. For instances, Aloth may use fireball or Hiravias may use Spiritshift. All preparations must be done so that Rogue can get +50% damage from melee weapons. As a result, net party DPS may be not as efficient as you think. Comparing Rogue vs Spiritshifted Druid, I also find that by the time Rogue reachs the back side of an enemy, the Spirited Shift Druid (Hiravias) has attacked 3 times already. The damage per hit is also much more than Rogue's Sneak Attack. Spritshifted Druid, they surely hit hard and fast. Rogue has no attack speed buff. Even though Rogue can hit hard with proper setup. Sneak Attack in a combination with Deathblows can produce a big damage number. Rogue lacks attack speed. This is why most Rogue players must put a lot of stat on DEX in compensation. Per rest abilities are not enough. Shadowing Beyond, Finishing Blow, and Fearsome Strike are per-rest skills. Such constraints limit Rogue damage output harshly. When playing Rogue, unless meta gaming (you know what will happen next), people tend to keep these skills for the hard fight, which they do not know whether it will come soon or not. Eventually, they may not have a chance to use them at all. Limiting 1 time per rest on Fearsome Strike is a joke. Backstab is just an illusion. The skill is really hard to use. In order to Backstab an enemy, you need to be invisible or in stealth. With Stealth, you can do Backstab 1 time per encounter. With Shadowing Beyond, you can do 2 Backstab per rest. With level-15 skill Feign Death, you can do Backstab 1 time per encounter. The number of availability is low and what you get is merely +150% damage. Any normal character can reach +200% damage by attacking 3 times. A minmax Spiritshifted Druid may even attack 5 times while Rogue "prepares" to do Backstab. However, you might take this skill anyway because you do not have anything better to choose. This is kinda sad. Dirty Fighting is just a lesser version of +10 accuracy. Dirty Fighting is a great passive skill for any damage dealer. Everyone likes it. This skill is one of the reasons anybody wants to play Rogue as PC. However, other classes might have similar skill too such as Stalker Link from Ranger and Discipline Barrage from Figher. In summary, I want to like Rogue but the class is just not that good in PotD Upscale. All Rogue-lovers, please read this before comment. My opinion is based on PotD Upscale only. If your Rogue works on lower difficulty, I understand, but that is not the point here. Try playing White March II at level 15-16 and choose level upsacle to High Level and you will see what I mean.