Class review: The Rogue (The Assassin more like)

[mutonizer]

disclaimer:
All the information below was collected during BB301 in an enclosed environment and tests were conducted between characters only using all weapons and armor available in the beta. Monster balance is therefore irrelevant.
Due to some lack of details on some mechanics as well as poorly detailed tool-tips, I probably got a couple things wrong as well. This is also just me testing **** with the tools we have available (and simple modding to make it easier to recruit adventurers). I also could only do level 1 to 8 reliably, but should be a good start. I've started including level 9 to 12 abilities in there as well, but please note that these are just interesting for the class concept they offer, NOT their current implementation (which is not supposed to be active right now).
I ran tests with all classes to get a good feel for them before judging each class individually, and I plan on trying to do more class specific reviews under similar conditions as time allows.
 
 
First, and to clear the air from the start, Rogue is a misnomer for this class.
There is nothing "Rogue" about it and instead, it should be called Assassin, which is what it actually is. The +1 Stealth and +2 Mechanic doesn't justify it's name and the class has no inherent "Roguish" abilities that others do not. It's totally possible that you end up with your Fighter being way more Roguish than your Rogue.
The rogue is there for one reason, and one reason only: Insane DPS from Critical Hits and Sneak Attacks, which means Assassin.
That dealt with, I've gone with two main Rogue roles: Melee Rogue and Ranged Rogue but since they perform pretty much equally, let's just say DPS.

 

RACES

• Human: Interesting, sadly more often than not, 5 seconds after getting below 50% Endurance, you're dead or running away and the bonus are not that good.
• Aumaua: Not really relevant to the class
• Dwarf: Boreal can be interesting for Wilder/Primordial but too situational. Mountain isn't really relevant.
• Elf: Pale elf are irrelevant, but Wood Elf are really good for a Ranged Rogue
• Orlan: Wild Orlan is irrelevant but Hearth Orlan is pure awesome on a Rogue
• Godlike: Only Death Godlike is interesting here though, because of the Rogue DPS potential, enemies under 15% Endurance would be dead next attack anyway most likely.

ATTRIBUTES

• MIG is part of what the class is designed for, no reason not to max it out. It's a bit more situational than PER though I'd raise this second, but if you have other ACC boosts in the party (paladin, etc), then raising it first might be best.
• CON isn't really relevant though, since it's part of the FORT defense, don't dump it or enemy barbarians will eat you up
• DEX is really good, especially if you can push Attack Speed beyond the Recovery Time threshold.
• PER is as usual just a must have simply because you do not know what kind of DEF the enemies will have and higher ACC overall means more stability against anything you might encounter.
• INT No reason to up it, but don't dump it either. Nothing worst than having your biggest DPS mind controlled or Feared into oblivion.
• RES Duration boost is handy on some Rogue abilities, but as a whole, there are other, much better Attribute to raise I think. IF you're ok with lots of micro-management and ability spam on your rogue, then go for it, it's great, better than MIG or DEX by far (keep PER to actually land crits and whatnot). If not, don't bother.

All in all:

• For either roles, I'd max out PER/MIG for fast weak melee roles, or PER/DEX for slow heavy melee/ranged roles. If you have ways to boost ACC in your party, MIG/DEX, MIG/RES or DEX/RES might become a thing but personally I'd take stability from PER anyday, simply because it helps ensure that the rogue will not become irrelevant in a high DEF enemy situation

CORE ABILITIES (* means you have a talent pick at that level)

• (level 1) Sneak Attack: Passive x2 damage multiplier against any target that is Blinded, Flanked, hobbled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Prone, Stuck, Stunned or Weakened, as well as during the first two seconds of combat starting. This is part of what allowed the Rogue to break down current combat mechanics as this, just like Critical multiplier, is applied before DT calculation, allowing even the fast Rogues to go sky-high on damage and grazes to pierces even some of the hardest DTs.
• (level 1) Crippling Strike (2/enc): +25% damage attack with 10sec duration Hobbled effect. Because it's a damage attack, stacks with everything, can trigger sneak attack and is per encounter, this is what you should be opening with every encounter, period. Even at level 1 wielding basic daggers, you'll one shot Average END enemies right then and there most of the time.
• (level 1) Reckless Assault (modal): There is no reason, ever, to not have this Modal active. Not only the boost to ACC is insane and stacks with everything else, it also gives you yet another damage multiplier on-top of everything else. Even when attacked, you're probably best keeping this on to kill things faster, or just use your level 2 ability "Escape" to re-position.
• (level 2) Escape (1/enc): This makes any kind of DEF useless on Rogue and why things like Reckless Assault will always be on. Being per encounter means you basically get an out of jail free card every combat and really, how much ****ing up can you do per combat. Another really good use for this is to get your Rogue instantly deep behind enemy lines to get that annoying caster down. Risky of course, but Escape > Crippling Strike and he'll be dead before anyone else notices.
• (level 3*) Dirty Fighting (passive): +10% Hit to Crit range is crazy on it's own, but on a Rogue, that just means more and more damage multiplier. Note that it doesn't make you hit more reliably, it just converts any attack hit roll (after ACC-DEF calculation) of 86+ into a crit, instead of 96+ as it is normally.
• (level 4) Finishing Blow (2/rest): On targets above 49% Endurance left, this will grant a x1.5 damage multiplier as well as a +5 ACC bonus on the attack. Below 49% however, this will convert every % of missing health into added damage on-top of the base damage. The more base damage you can potentially do, the bigger the added damage on low health target. The per rest condition makes it less useful that it sounds sadly, but if you want to bring down a target fast, don't hesitate to pop this just for the ACC bonus and multiplier.
• (level 5) Riposte (passive): Melee attacks against DEF and Misses have 20% chance to trigger instant, off cool-down, off animation frame full attack (meaning both hands if dual wielding). Sounds really good in theory, but not sure the 20% chance is working properly unless there is a flat miss.
• (level 6*) Blinding Strike (1/enc): Launches full assault with x1.25 damage multiplier and Blinds target for 10 seconds on normal hit. Blinded state really screwed someone over with -20DEF/REF, -2 Move speed, -4PER and -25 ACC and will allow triggering of Sneak Attacks. Since it's per encounter, spam this at will, just like you'd do Crippling Strike.
• (level 7) Adept Evasion (passive): +50% Graze to Miss range against attacks going on RED defense. This basically means anything attacking your REF and grazing, will be instead a miss. Pretty massive and very situational but since you'll most likely have a nice REF defense due to PER/DEX boosting, could come in handy.
• (level 8 ) Deep Wounds (passive): One of the most bull**** abilities, like any raw damage ability. This will make any attack you do causing Slash, Pierce or Crush gain an on hit effect causing Raw Damage over time, basically 3 damage every second for 15 seconds, even if you just grazed for 0.1 damage and whatnot. It also refreshed every hit. While interesting potentially, I really think this should ONLY trigger when you land a critical hit, not ALL the bloody time. This would limit it's crazy damaging effect, especially on your main tanks, while allowing it to properly act as a mean DOT once it actually lands, instead of being constantly refreshed before it can do it's damage.
• (level 9)* Withering Strike (1/enc): Full attack and x1.25 damage on hit, it'll cause Weakening state as well. This is yet another per enc ability that makes the Rogues annoying (and deadly) micro-management prima-donas. The Weakened state does -20 WILL and FORT, -2 Move and -2 CON/MIGHT and as usual allows for triggering of sneak attacks.
• (level 10) Coordinated Positioning (2/enc): Another per encounter that allows you to instantly swap position with someone. If it's a friendly, it's automatic, if it's an enemy, there is a REF defense check. Not sure if the check works for now but the ability itself does. The range is very short however, so you won't be swapping places all over the place, however it's quite nice to get in, out or behind enemy lines, or even to swap place with your tank if you need to move him a bit.
• (level 11) Deathblows (passive): Boost to sneak attack damage multiplier if the target is afflicted by two or more debuffs that should trigger a sneak attack. Yep, bit crazy but there you go. Not 100% sure how the multiplier stacks but it "seemed" to make sneak attacks into a x3 instead of x2 multplier. The concept is there however, more damage on sneak attacks.
• (level 12) Fearsome Strike (1/rest): Full attack with x1.25 damage multiplier that puts Hobbled and Weakened on target. Why this is per rest as a level 12 ability while everything else is per encounter is beyond me, probably a bug.

EXTRA TALENTS

• Devastating Blows: Could not find much information on this but I'm guessing it changes the Finish Blow ratio very slightly. The fact that you can get this at level 3 while Finishing Blow is level 4 is a bit mind blowing however.
• Deflecting Assault: This reduces the DEF penalty from -10 to -5 when using Reckless Assault. Woopty ****ing do. Ignore 100%.
• Vicious Fighting: Adds another +5 Hit to Crit range on-top of the usual 10% from Dirty Fighting, putting your Crit Range at 81%. Take it first, period.

• Weapon Focus: With Reckless Assault and probably PER bonus, that's another potential +10ACC on top of everything else. Personally, I'd take it before Vicious Fighting if I don't have a Paladin or I want my Paladin to rock the +DT aura instead of ACC.
• Hold the Line: While cool in theory, you do not want to force anything to "stop and engage" your rogue at any point in time so I'd stay really far away from this one.
• Defensive Talents: WILL is probably the only one I'd get, simply because I do NOT want my Rogue mind controlled, especially late game (we all know these spider guys will be there to ruin our days like the copycat mindflayers they are). Probably taking this 3rd though with a Priest able to use Prayer of [..] and other Blessings, might not be worth it.
• Savage Attack: This is one of the rare time when a Modal actually stacks (somewhat) with a class Modal BUT it does in a very odd fashion. What actually happens is that you'll keep the -15ACC and x1.5 Melee damage multiplier from Savage Attack, the -10 DEF, +10 ACC and x1.25 Ranged damage multiplier, but the x1.2 melee damage multiplier from Reckless Assault will be suppressed. Combining both basically gives you -10DEF, -5 melee ACC, +10 Ranged ACC, x1.2 Ranged damage and x1.5 Melee damage. Personally, I don't think it's a good trade but it's up to you. As a note, if you activate Savage Attack THEN Reckless Assault, what is actually suppressed is ONLY the ACC penalty from Savage Attack, and none of the Damage multipliers. This will need re-testing once the stacking suppression system is fixed.
• Cautious Attack: Here again, rare case where it stacks somewhat, and in a very, very good way. What happens here is that Cautious Attack +15DEF will not only suppress your Reckless Assault -10DEF penalty, but also add itself onto your DEF afterwards, resulting in a net +15DEF gain for a x0.8 attack speed. On fast melee DPS rogues who dual wields, this is a VERY good trade-off, especially if you pumped DEX a bit to offset that. Considering this is a modal, you could just pop it if you want some staying power in the melee pack and even stack DEF even further with the addition of a weapon-set with something like a good small shield. As a note, the fact that you need to activate Reckless Assault THEN Cautious Attack for it to stack up properly might indicate the whole thing is bugged.
• Envenomed Strike: not worth the cost for only 3 per rest I think.
• Fast Runner: No visible effect as usual.

All in all, the Rogue in itself is a good class that will require a LOT of micro-management to properly use. All his abilities are useful for both Melee and Ranged roles as well, which is a good thing. They are also a heavy micro-management class. with so many per encounter abilities, you'll be pushing buttons almost constantly. They can "perform" when left alone, but really, that's just wasting it.

The bad part is that this is the class that defines what's completely broken with the current system. During my tests, I was able to do reliably do 110~ crit hits wielding a base dagger, killing my level 8 tank paladin in 10-15 seconds while he was in full plate and large shield and whatnot. Because effects apply even on graze, once the Rogue gets going, if he's not killing his target instantly, nothing can stop him. With so many per encounter abilities, all being so easy to land (and crit with, since this is the Rogue we're talking about), you'll be locking down/weakening even the toughest enemies like it's nothing. As a note, re-application of an effect will add duration on-top of the existing effect, not just refresh it so nothing's ever wasted and multiple Rogues don't cancel out each other, on the contrary.
On top of that, due to his ability to crit and sneak attack, things get out of hand really fast and with proper slow hard hitting weapons, you can pretty much one shot any creature in the beta currently as the multipliers keep stacking up, making any kind of armor being worn irrelevant overall.
Added again on top of all this that the Rogue is allowed to use any weapon and armor available in the game (something you don't usually do with classes that can exponentially grow damage wise, because it makes slow hard hitting weapons completely over-powered), and you got a major issue at hand here.
 
Sadly, I don't think simply tweaking a value here and there can solve this problem.
The "easiest" way I can think of that would not affect game mechanics or how any other class performs is to limit the weapons available to Rogues to, for example, fast weapons only. This will instantly get rid of crazy damage ramp up and bring down Rogues to a more reasonable level of damage when they don't use abilities as well as make them better against weakly armored targets and less effective against armored targets, which is something that seems in tune for the concept of the class: low damage fast weapons, with incredible critical hit potential and utility (from debuffs). Doesn't solve the problem completely, but rather hides it a bit under the rug.
Another way to smooth things over would be to calculate critical hit multipliers after DT calculation, but before DR. This won't make dramatic changes, but will push things to a more acceptable middle ground damage wise.

That said, the core problems are not with the Rogue, which is really a good and in itself, balanced class that does it's job...as an Assassin. The core problems are with the combat mechanics as a whole with the whole Graze/Hit/Crit system, which the Rogue just exacerbates because of the class design. Once these are solved, somehow, I think the Rogue class will behave just fine though as it is currently, it just simple breaks the entire combat mechanics, period.
 
 
As a fun closing note, I tried a run with nothing but Rogues and a Priest, all Orlans but the Priest, who was wood elf.

• 2 Rogues were my acting tanks, with maxed out INT/RES, in full plate with hatchet, shields and Cautious Attack, Hold the Line
• 2 Rogues were melee DPS, 1 with Pike, other with dual stilettos (PER/MIG), in leather and Weapon Focus, Savage Attack
• 1 Rogue was Ranged DPS and debuffer with Hunting Bow (RES/PER), Weapon Focus, Vicious Fighting
• 1 Priest

They pretty much tear **** apart non stop. Rogues make incredible tanks when used properly, with Escape allowing them to position right when they're needed, and their debuffs (especially Blind/Weaken) allowing them to really survive proper. Add onto that their crit potential, damage multipliers, constant sneak attacks, adept evasion and it was one of the best party I've run so far.
 
 
As usual, try to stick to discussions and comments directly related to the class itself, not so non class related game mechanics.
 
Cheerios.

Edited October 2, 2014 by mutonizer

[Sensuki]

Great post, I haven't hacked together a party of all rogues or gone above the level range, but yeah Rogues are _IMBAAAAAAAAAAAAAA_ at the moment and combined with the across the board nerf to creatures in the new patch (it seems?) even combat with one rogue is a complete laugh.

 

The damage system at the moment is a complete joke, whoever thought it would be a good idea to make everything 1.25x damage and stackable needed to think that through a little better. This is why flat integers are usually the best/easiest to understand and balance.

 

A lot of the racial abilities are pretty meaningless as well. I'm not sure if that's meant to be the case or not.

Edited October 2, 2014 by Sensuki

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Nice write up. What I've always said over the last two years. Now we just have to wait for the invisibility power to be implemented and can't wait to take out my party of ninjas.  And I love the teleport spell escape power to teleport all over the place as well as into flanking positions.  

[mutonizer]

Yea, I keep trying to find small changes that might make the whole combat mechanics less ****ed up because there's not that much time left, but really, if they had time, I'd really push for a complete system revamp. The one we have currently is completely ****ed up.

 

With a "no bad build" philosophy like the one that's being pushed forward, it's really odd that they came up with this and allowed it to continue. I mean, this system WILL screw you over if you don't do it right, unless they plan on keeping mobs a complete cakewalk as they are now, with only bugged out abilities and bull**** graze-effects offering any difficulty on any level. It's also open to so much min-maxing and to such extremes, that the play experiences between a random "look nice" player and a "hmm, what does this do" player will have almost nothing in common; one beating his head against grazes and DT for hours, the other one shotting everything.

 

And if they fix just the mobs, it'll be even worse for the casuals...

 

In itself however, if you "limit yourself" to some weapons and whatnot, the class is quite nice really. The on-graze effect bull**** and multipliers quickly turn him into a death machine no matter what you do but otherwise, it's not bad.

It's just not a Rogue though, which I think REALLY suck balls. It's just another nondescript DPS...

Edited October 2, 2014 by mutonizer

[IndiraLightfoot]

Heh! It gets better. Today I reported a bug, where you actually can long distance heal your killer Rogue, up to 100 m away! What I didn't test is other kind of spells, such as buffs. It feels like the entire game is built around these ninjas. Who would have known? Bushido of Eternity.

[Sensuki]

Unfortunately "nondescript DPS" has been the design for the Rogue from the beginning.

 

They need to change a lot of the mechanics, we're not sure if multipliers are additive or multiplicative, but either way it probably doesn't matter.

 

We can mod any of the source code, but at the moment there is no way to get at the prefabs (which is where a lot of the abilities/spells etc are), which is a shame.

[mutonizer]

Just calling it Assassin would limit the downer feeling that people who love rogues usually in a fantasy setting might get once they select the class. Fits with what they can do and how they behave perfectly.

It would also remove the "damn, I need a Rogue" urge one might get in your usual fantasy settings, making it clear that Stealth and Mechanics systems are not linked to any class per se, therefore freeing what I'd call Casuals from the burden of trying to fit a class in their party that they actually do not need, simply because they're used to the concept, which is not valid in PoE.

 

But that's just part of the issue, small part at that

[Sensuki]

Once again though like many things in PE (classes, attributes, abilities) the Rogue is just a familiar name for something entirely different.

Edited October 2, 2014 by Sensuki

[Hiro Protagonist II]

With a "no bad build" philosophy like the one that's being pushed forward, it's really odd that they came up with this and allowed it to continue. I mean, this system WILL screw you over if you don't do it right, unless they plan on keeping mobs a complete cakewalk as they are now, with only bugged out abilities and bull**** graze-effects offering any difficulty on any level. It's also open to so much min-maxing and to such extremes, that the play experiences between a random "look nice" player and a "hmm, what does this do" player will have almost nothing in common; one beating his head against grazes and DT for hours, the other one shotting everything.

 

LOL. Who would have thought? And, the Rogue is pure awesome done right. DPS and holding the front line is what I used to do in 4E pnp. I found the Rogue is more of a swashbuckler in 4E. But as you say you have to get the build right, otherwise it will screw you over.

 

Rogues make incredible tanks when used properly, with Escape allowing them to position right when they're needed, and their debuffs (especially Blind/Weaken) allowing them to really survive proper.

 

Hah. hahaha. I recall a certain thread some time back (oh look, earlier this year where I mentioned this and even mentioned the Escape power), when I said a Rogue can tank on the front line. And as usual, I got shot down for it. 

 

Anyway, I prefer not to do these threads myself as I've always known you can build min-max characters right from the start, even before the beta. And I've been doing so since the beta went live. I highly doubt the whole game, classes, races, encounters, A.I., everything will be balanced when the game is released. There just seems to be way too much to fix with the game in the next two months imo. But I'll definitely be creating threads on my builds AFTER the game is released. It is good to see you doing these threads though.

[Sensuki]

For most classes (not all) the difference in starting END and END per level is minimal and equates to about one proper monster hit IF THAT in the actual game.

Edited October 2, 2014 by Sensuki

[curryinahurry]

While there are ways to tone down the Rogue's DPS abilities, like no effects on Grazes and nerfing Sneak Attack, it doesn't solve the core problem behind the class, which is that it is horribly one dimensional.  

 

IE (and in the NWN games) rogues were pretty crap without multi/dual classing.  The fact that multi/dual was available made them pretty fun.  That option not being available in POE, it would have been nice to allow for a more crowd control rogue build; a trickster of sorts.  The thing is, in 278, I was having some fun with the rogue with crippling strike, blinding, and escape, but since 301 has been released and the damage effects have been 'fixed', it would be stupid to not take advantage of the class' ability to deal damage.

 

It would be interesting if Obsidian offered certain talents that allowed the rogue to do more crowd control type attacks (stuns, entangling, traps,etc.) at the cost of some of its DPS abilities, but I doubt they will go in that direction.

[morhilane]

Great post, I haven't hacked together a party of all rogues or gone above the level range, but yeah Rogues are _IMBAAAAAAAAAAAAAA_ at the moment and combined with the across the board nerf to creatures in the new patch (it seems?) even combat with one rogue is a complete laugh.

 

The damage system at the moment is a complete joke, whoever thought it would be a good idea to make everything 1.25x damage and stackable needed to think that through a little better. This is why flat integers are usually the best/easiest to understand and balance.

 

A lot of the racial abilities are pretty meaningless as well. I'm not sure if that's meant to be the case or not.

 

All the rogue imbaness is also coded into the NPC rogues...

 

Medreth can sneak attack crit for 50+ point of damage , apply his own conditions for sneak attack and got the crazy Deep Wound that he seems to be able to spam at will.

[mutonizer]

All the rogue imbaness is also coded into the NPC rogues...

Medreth can sneak attack crit for 50+ point of damage , apply his own conditions for sneak attack and got the crazy Deep Wound that he seems to be able to spam at will.

 

 

Medreth's also wielding an Estoc, one of the best (if not the best) melee weapon currently in the game. My bad, that's the other party dude. Dual fine stiletos will do the trick just fine though

As for Deep Wounds, it's automatic indeed and will affect any target the Rogue grazes or better. It's also refreshed automatically (and ticks instantly) on every attack.

Edited October 2, 2014 by mutonizer

[Seari]

I just realized, paladins are a tankier 3.5 bard.

 

They should increase the penalty of Reckless Assault, I want rogues(assassins) to be squishy as **** with that on.

 

All these per encounter abilities means spamming the same thing every encounter right?

 

edit: Pillars of Eternity will be a good aRPG.

Edited October 2, 2014 by Seari

[forgottenlor]

I just want to say, I hope you keep going through the classes, Mutonizer. Your reviews are well thought out and a pleasure to read.

[mutonizer]

I just realized, paladins are a tankier 3.5 bard.

They should increase the penalty of Reckless Assault, I want rogues(assassins) to be squishy as **** with that on.

All these per encounter abilities means spamming the same thing every encounter right?

 

Yep, lots of per encounter, that's why I put it as very high maintenance.

You "can" treat it low maintenance but then you're best ignoring RES totally, and handle it like a tag along fighter DPS. Flank status is a bit buggy just now, and some mobs have 3+ and above Flanking threshold, but it works.

 

 

I just want to say, I hope you keep going through the classes, Mutonizer. Your reviews are well thought out and a pleasure to read.

Cheers. Probably some mistakes in there because, well, beta, but I was doing some kind of class check list on my side so figured might as well put it out there and do some more involved testing. And yea I'll most likely continue even if it doesn't generate much class discussion. Next on the list will be Wizard and that will conclude the 4 "classic" classes. After that, I'll go onto Paladin, Druid, Barbarian, Ranger, Monk and finally Cypher and Chanter, them being the PoE specific classes. Probably one every couple days as it takes some time to try and figure how things work, create the proper testing environment and the beta isn't helping sometimes

[Sensuki]

I just did a party of 5 rogues (PC Rogue, BB Rogue, 3 Adventurer Level 4 Rogues), I did the entire Dyrford Crossing quite easily although my main tanking rogues ran out of Health half way through and I had to swap two of my arbalesters into melee and give the wounded ones the arbalests/crossbows.

 

A couple of my chars got KO'd - one from Petrification by spiders (crit for 150 damage), and the other was critted by one of the Wurm Hunters.

 

I did cheat in myself a fine crossbow and an extra fine arbalest, otherwise I just used BB gear.

 

I also noticed that two of my Rogues had the ability orders in the action bar backwards for some reason.

 

Most of the beetles and wolves went down to a single volley of bolts plus a melee attack each from my melee rogues (that's fighting the whole group at once).

Edited October 2, 2014 by Sensuki

[mutonizer]

Yea, overall I noticed that things are much more stable with having 2 tag teams (tank/dps, tank/dps) to lower the flanking issues on your main tank (which really screws you over DEF wise) as well as debuff overcharge (especially poison stacking).

 

Instant "Withdrawl" from priest is all you need against Petrification though. Or did you not have any Priest? Think Paladin suppress can work too in a pinch but not 100% sure.

Edited October 2, 2014 by mutonizer

[Sensuki]

No Priest, I did 5 pure Rogues.

[Fiebras]

I also noticed that two of my Rogues had the ability orders in the action bar backwards for some reason.

 

I think the ability order is dependant on what ablities you get first upon level up. Ive had that happen with my own PC Rouge.

 

I can see arguments for and against that mechanic. IF its an intended mechanic.

Edited October 2, 2014 by Fiebras

[Sensuki]

Probably should be the same for every character of the same class.

[Lephys]

I agree that the uber-focus of the class on pure damage boosting is a bit overkill. It wouldn't be difficult, however, to simply adjust the Sneak Attack mechanic to be a bit more dynamic, and the rest of the factors mentioned can all be tweaked. It might take a few iterations, but I don't see it as impossible to get "right."

[Sensuki]

Sneak attack isn't the problem. It's the damage multiplier stacking.

[illathid]

Yeah, the multiplier stacking is crazy. It should definitely be looked at.

[Lephys]

Yeah, sorry. I realize my comment was confusing. I was meaning in regard to:

 

Unfortunately "nondescript DPS" has been the design for the Rogue from the beginning.

I think their being nondescript DPS is heavy-handed class design. Separately, the fact that they currently do way too MUCH damage ('cause o' multiplier stacking) is also an issue. But, even if they're all nice and balanced, I don't think "DPS" is a quality class function. I get classes being more geared toward/optimal at that particular role, but I don't think that role should be what that class inherently does.