So I made a video of me going over the Rogue abilities and talents up to level 12 in character creation. One thing I noticed that irked me was that at level 2, the only class talent available for Rogues was Backstab which makes you do x2 damage when coming out of invisibility. But...rogues have no invisibility abilities at level 2 UNTIL level 4 when they have access to shadowing beyond which lets them turn invisible. 

 

Can someone explain to me what I'm missing here?????? Like what's the point of giving us backstab at level 2 which will do nothing for us until we get to level 4 to get our first and only invisible ability???????????????

 

Or am I just dumb and I missed a key word somewhere?

Edited March 7, 201510 yr by TrueMenace

Is sneak attack applied when you attack from invisibility ?

Is sneak attack applied when you attack from invisibility ?

Yes, if I remember correctly you do a sneak attack coming out of invisibility (says it in the tooltip for Shadowing Beyond).

 

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Shadowing_Beyond

 

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Backstab

Edited March 7, 201510 yr by TrueMenace

Well it's not useless - it gives you a sneak attack and allows you to escape (I have actually not tried it since it was implemented and didn't work in v364 or whatever).

 

Backstab gives you a pretty huge damage multiplier (x2) - stack a few others on top of that and you might get a 1-hit-kill.

 

Just tried it then - seems pretty good, although I'd prefer it to be 3/rest

 

2/rest doesn't seem worth it.

Edited March 7, 201510 yr by Sensuki

Well it's not useless - it gives you a sneak attack and allows you to escape (I have actually not tried it since it was implemented and didn't work in v364 or whatever).

 

Backstab gives you a pretty huge damage multiplier (x2) - stack a few others on top of that and you might get a 1-hit-kill.

Backstab won't apply the x2 damage unless you are invisible first. The first attack you do coming out of invisibility is a backstab essentially. 

 

What I'm saying is...you don't do backstabs UNTIL you get Shadowing Beyond (available at level 4). Once you are level 4 and choose Shadowing Beyond (which grants you an automatic sneak attack out of invisibility) then your statement is correct. 

 

My question still stands...why give us the backstab talent at level 2 instead of Shadowing Beyond?

Edited March 7, 201510 yr by TrueMenace

Oh, right - you can get Backstab at level 2. Yeah that should probably be changed to "until you have Shadowing Beyond". Report it as a bug.

Edited March 7, 201510 yr by Sensuki

Oh, right - you can get Backstab at level 2. Yeah that should probably be changed to "until you have Shadowing Beyond". Report it as a bug.

Never reported a bug, but I'll give it a try.

Is there no other source of invisibility in the game? Even later than lvl 4? Spells or items?

Doesn't backstab work if you are in stealth? At least, that is the impression I had.

Doesn't backstab work if you are in stealth? At least, that is the impression I had.

Can you stealth in combat? You're not simply thinking of stealth attacks?

 

Doesn't backstab work if you are in stealth? At least, that is the impression I had.

Can you stealth in combat? You're not simply thinking of stealth attacks?

 

No, Stealth and Combat are mutually exclusive, because you are Stealthed when you are Scouting, and Combat is a game state that prohibits the scouting state.

 

When you want to Stealth, the entire party has to go into Scouting Mode, and when combat starts, the entire party is thrown out of Scouting Mode and thus also Stealth.

 

There is no Stealth in combat. There are, however, abilities that can make you Invisible, and you can be Invisible in combat.

 

Which is funny, because last I heard (I haven't checked in BBv435) you can't actually go Invisible outside of Combat, which makes for some hilariously broken scenarios where you can't actually Stealth past enemies with Scouting Mode, but you can't go Invisible until after they've detected you so that Combat starts. Suck on that one for a while.

Edited March 7, 201510 yr by Luckmann

 

Doesn't backstab work if you are in stealth? At least, that is the impression I had.

Can you stealth in combat? You're not simply thinking of stealth attacks?

 

I was actually thinking of opening a fight with backstab while in stealth, but if the ability is "combat only", yep that doesn't work.

Is there no other source of invisibility in the game? Even later than lvl 4? Spells or items?

Not sure in terms of special gear or scrolls, but the only invisibility spell is Shadowing Beyond and it's for the Rogue. It's definitely an oversight by J. Sawyer. It needs to be fixed ASAP because it gimps the Rogue to become the weakest class until level 4.

You can Backstab by opening combat with your stealthed rogue, even before getting Shadowing Beyond.  And it's very powerful, since it also applies sneak attack damage.  You can often outright kill an enemy at the start of battle this way.

You can Backstab by opening combat with your stealthed rogue, even before getting Shadowing Beyond. And it's very powerful, since it also applies sneak attack damage. You can often outright kill an enemy at the start of battle this way.

During combat however, you can't use backstab because you can't stealth. Only until lvl.4 is when you get Shadowing Beyond so you can use backstab in combat. Also the tooltip for Backstab doesn't even mention that it'll work when stealth. Overall, you should get Shadowing Beyond at lv2 and Backstab at level 4.

 

My point still stands.

You stealth before you get into combat.  You start the combat by having the rogue attack someone from stealth.

Yeah the talent description should be updated to clarify it can be used from stealth as well

You stealth before you get into combat. You start the combat by having the rogue attack someone from stealth.

Ok great, but IN COMBAT, you cannot stealth. I order to use backstab during combat you must use shadowing beyond. Does no one care that this is a huge problem? Let alone the tooltip is apparently incomplete for backstab...

You stealth before you get into combat.  You start the combat by having the rogue attack someone from stealth.

Apart from that being completely beside the point, opening combat with a backstab is pretty far from the greatest idea, in many, many cases.

 

In PoE, especially early on, odds are you'll get swarmed and mobbed, locked down by Engagement. Even if you use escape mechanics, you would most likely be much better served not spending time on backstabbing and not spending time on getting out of Engagement, and simply wail on enemies as anyone else, focusing on Stealth for pre-encounter positioning and scouting, rather than lining up a backstab from Stealth.

 

And forget about having your party initiate combat and then creep in from the side to take out a given target that may already be Engaged by one of your allies (or a mark behind enemy lines); stealth doesn't work in combat in PoE. At all. You are forcefully bumped out of it when combat starts anywhere.

 

Still, however, that is completely, completely beside his point.

 

Ok great, but IN COMBAT, you cannot stealth. I order to use backstab during combat you must use shadowing beyond. Does no one care that this is a huge problem? Let alone the tooltip is apparently incomplete for backstab...

I care. There are even greater issues with it in the game, though, that we know will not be fixed for release, so it's hard to get worked up over it.

 

I really do get the feeling that the reason Edér was made into a Fighter and the reason there's no Rogue Companion in the game is so as to not highlight the issues, hoping that people will spread out evenly amongst the available classes and not notice, or something...

 

You stealth before you get into combat. You start the combat by having the rogue attack someone from stealth.

Ok great, but IN COMBAT, you cannot stealth. I order to use backstab during combat you must use shadowing beyond. Does no one care that this is a huge problem? Let alone the tooltip is apparently incomplete for backstab...

 

 

It is perhaps a problem, especially since there are no other known sources of invisibility. But the ability to open with a backstab still makes quite a difference here, since it is then potentially a once per encounter (from level 2, by only spending talent. Shadowing is per rest, right?). I guess you can backstab using a ranged weapon, no? If so, its a fair bit safer to open that way at least, and a quite meaningful talent at level 2.

Regardless if it's useless w/o invisibility, Obsidian needs to update these dam tooltips and fix this issue because I guarantee people are gunna be upset when they pick the Rogue during release and realize they are gimped till level 4. Most of them won't even know that backstab works during stealth.  You know why? The tooltip for Backstab doesn't even say that! I mean, honestly they need to take a day and fix all these broken tooltips. I want to know exactly what this ability does and no hidden secrets! And I'm not just advocating they fix the Backstab tooltip, they need to switch the order you get Shadowing Beyond and Backstab.

 

/rant.

Edited March 7, 201510 yr by TrueMenace

 

 

You stealth before you get into combat. You start the combat by having the rogue attack someone from stealth.

Ok great, but IN COMBAT, you cannot stealth. I order to use backstab during combat you must use shadowing beyond. Does no one care that this is a huge problem? Let alone the tooltip is apparently incomplete for backstab...

 

 

It is perhaps a problem, especially since there are no other known sources of invisibility. But the ability to open with a backstab still makes quite a difference here, since it is then potentially a once per encounter (from level 2, by only spending talent. Shadowing is per rest, right?). I guess you can backstab using a ranged weapon, no? If so, its a fair bit safer to open that way at least, and a quite meaningful talent at level 2.

 

That's.. uhm.. actually a really good question. You'd be surprised by how often ranged backstabs are not a thing in games. I don't have the time to pop into the beta and check right now, but I'm sure someone will, or Sensuki will swing around.

 

But I would not make the passing assumption that you can backstab with ranged weapons. You couldn't backstab with ranged weapons in the IE games at all, and I'm still annoyed you can't do ranged backstabs in D:OS (you can't even backstab with a friggin' blackjack).

 

 

 

You stealth before you get into combat. You start the combat by having the rogue attack someone from stealth.

Ok great, but IN COMBAT, you cannot stealth. I order to use backstab during combat you must use shadowing beyond. Does no one care that this is a huge problem? Let alone the tooltip is apparently incomplete for backstab...

 

 

It is perhaps a problem, especially since there are no other known sources of invisibility. But the ability to open with a backstab still makes quite a difference here, since it is then potentially a once per encounter (from level 2, by only spending talent. Shadowing is per rest, right?). I guess you can backstab using a ranged weapon, no? If so, its a fair bit safer to open that way at least, and a quite meaningful talent at level 2.

 

That's.. uhm.. actually a really good question. You'd be surprised by how often ranged backstabs are not a thing in games. I don't have the time to pop into the beta and check right now, but I'm sure someone will, or Sensuki will swing around.

 

But I would not make the passing assumption that you can backstab with ranged weapons. You couldn't backstab with ranged weapons in the IE games at all, and I'm still annoyed you can't do ranged backstabs in D:OS (you can't even backstab with a friggin' blackjack).

 

 

Well, I'm fairly sure that you can sneak attack with ranged weapons at least, so I guessed it was similar to that. We'll see. But if it is possible, you might just wanna use a rogue with an arbalest or arquebus to backstab-open your fights. It will probably leave you with one less enemy to begin with. 

Ok then: When attacking from stealth, using the ranged attack ->  in combat log I see "Sneak Attack" and when doing the same from the close range -> there is "Backstab Sneak Attack". I didn't check the numbers, but it looks not working at range... Note, the "close range"  means it doesn't matter which weapon you use, including ranged ones (did it with the bow), in consistency with the description (not that we believe it).

 

Also doesn't matter that enemies see you when in stealth. But I guess with this Beta nobody would be able to use Backstab, if it would work only when unseen.

 

Are there any other possibilities? ~ scrolls/potions of invisibility, items giving the ability, somebody else with the invisibility spell?

 

Regardless, TrueMenace raised good points with the bug report. It looks more logical to have Shadowing Beyond (widely useful) available at lvl 2 and provide Backstab (situational and on other means dependent) as optional later on. I imagine even if the invisibility scrolls exist, we will not have them many on low levels.

 

 

I hope we will see one more Beta with updated/fixed descriptions, as it's sometimes tricky to decipher how stuff should work at all

Edited March 7, 201510 yr by ushas

I see it now - Point Blank Blinding Strike Lead Spitter Backstab Sneak Attack - l8z

Edited March 7, 201510 yr by Sensuki