Rogue advice

[billythegreat]

Hi, I am trying to make a good rogue but i can't decide what is the best setup . Can you advice what stats/race/culture are best for a good damage dealing rogue? thanks.

[3rdID]

Assassin Build

Advantages: Extremely High Damage Output, Fast Attacks, Escape Options  

Disadvantages: Low Health/Endurance, Low Deflection, Moderate Micro  

Strategy

The Assassin Rogue build is capable of some of the highest single-target damage values. Opening with a Backstab (if possible) and then following with Blinding Strike and Crippling Strike in every encounter is key. If you need to get away, use Shadowing Beyond. Alternatively, you can use Shadowing Beyond to land another easy Backstab on your opponent. This build doesn’t have a lot of survivability, so running into position after your tank has the attention of the enemy is necessary for staying alive.  

Equipment

Maces, Stilettos, Battle Axes, and Spears serve as great weapons. Though any one-handed weapon that is enchanted is a great option.  

Light or Medium armor is recommended for damage output. Though heavier armors still work well with the build and the added protection helps reduce the need for micro management.  

Races

Hearth Orlan,  Death Godlike or Wood Elf

Culture

Deadfire Archipelago, The White that Wends or Living Lands

Attributes

Might 18 -  Constitution 8 -  Dexterity 18 -  Perception 14 -  Intellect 14 -  Resolve 5

Abilities

Blinding Strike,  Reckless Assault,  Deep Wounds,  Dirty Fighting,  Crippling Strike,  Deathblows

Talents

Backstab,  Shadowing Beyond,  Two Weapon Style,  Vicious Fighting,  Vulnerable Attack,  Bloody Slaughterdy Slaughter

[tnc]

You can do a good min max build but be careful about your positioning in combat. The thing with the rogue is sneak attack and backstab is really important and you might also want other party members to support your rogue. For example there is a druid spell that gives the enemy ''flanked'' debuff allowing you to sneak attack.

[billythegreat]

Thanks for advice. I ended with a boreal dwarf rogue with 18/10/17/14/13/5. I find that choosing backstab ay lvl 3 was a huge mistake due to crap stealth mechanic implementation. ( why my rogue can't stay stealthed when my party start a fight? ). And the vanish like ability you get 2/rest? No ty. I think I will restart and avoid the backstab all togheter. Dammit , DA Origins had such a cool rogue system.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

^ Very good choices and similar to mine but I don't go for the backstab talent. I have a death godlike, Living Lands, Scientist. Also, I use an arquebus for my opening move.

 

Level 4 Rogue, Hard difficulty, crit and one shotting an enemy at the start of combat when my party was stealthed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Heijoushin]

I find vanish great for saving my rogue's ass. I mean, your rogue shouldn't be getting hit, but occasionally I make a mistake and they get engaged. Then vanish is great to get out of that situation.

 

Backstab is certainly so-so... (since most people seem to open with a gunshot)

[olpika]

Backstab is a viable option, it certainly help when you get the enemy blinded or crippled. I'm slowly trying to unlearn what a rogue usually is in a D&D game and to learn what it is in PoE. You get critical hits against crippled enemies, not when you get out of the shadows.

 

And as Heijoushin says, Vanish is not an offensive action, but a defensive one.

[Yosharian]

My basic strategy with my rogue (currently party is level 5) is to open with a ranged weapon, preferably an Arbalest.  Arbalest has very high damage and long range, so you can open with this without leaving your rogue in a ****ty position and ending up having to burn Shadowing Beyond charges to escape from charging angry enemies.

 

I have Stealth points on my tank (Eder) and at least 1-2 points on every party member, so that they can be positioned not far behind, or in Eder's case, slightly in front, so that when Stealth breaks, the enemies' nearest target is not my rogue, but my tank.  I also have my tank use an Arbalest or other 12m range weapon so that he can fire off a shot as well when my rogue opens combat (as long as your rogue fires within 2 seconds of combat opening, a Sneak Attack will still occur).

 

Following this I wait for enemy targets to gather around my tank(s) then move my rogue into combat, striking against the same target as my tank preferably.  If you don't do this, you risk the target disengaging from your tank and engaging your rogue instead.

 

Other strategies include sending the rogue solo against spellcaster enemies or other weak enemies such as robe-wearing priests.

 

Where possible your Rogue should not be taking damage, rather have him focus targets that are busy being targeted by your other party members, especially your tanks.

 

The build that I am using, more or less, can be seen here: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/71543-wtb-rogue-suggestionsadvice/?p=1594324

 

Essentially I dumpstat CON and INT, and keep RES and PER above 16 for the combat bonuses as well as role-playing bonuses (persuasion etc).  CON barely matters because your rogue should not be getting hit.  INT barely matters because the only ability it affects (so far for me, anyway) is Crippling/Blinding Strike, and duration is not a hugely important factor on these skills (it's nice, just not 'put 10 points into INT' nice).

 

In particular the bonus deflection granted by RES and PER keeps your rogue from being too easy to hit, hopefully protecting him from the occasional swipe as he repositions or accidentally draws aggro.

 

Put 1-2 points into Athletics so that your low CON doesn't have such an impact on your fighting longevity.  Fatigue is annoying.

 

I wear Padded Armor generally, since you don't want passing rats and stiff breezes to rupture your vital organs, but neither do you want to make your character into a proper tank.

 

Undecided on weapons at the moment.

 

The Backstab talent is singularly useless.  There are lots of great talents for rogues, especially dual-wielding ones, and you simply cannot afford to burn a talent point on such a ****ty talent.

 

Any more questions send me a PM or quote me.

[Fun3z]

Just go full dps build like the others above said and try to find Azureith's Stiletto, that weapon is a beast, in my opinion the most broken weapon i've found so far, and my party has been level 12 for a long time and i've pretty much cleared everything in the game.

[tnc]

Thanks for advice. I ended with a boreal dwarf rogue with 18/10/17/14/13/5. I find that choosing backstab ay lvl 3 was a huge mistake due to crap stealth mechanic implementation. ( why my rogue can't stay stealthed when my party start a fight? ). And the vanish like ability you get 2/rest? No ty. I think I will restart and avoid the backstab all togheter. Dammit , DA Origins had such a cool rogue system.

 

I believe you can do sneak attacks during first few seconds in a fight. It's not much but you can take down one target really fast.

[billythegreat]

 

Thanks for advice. I ended with a boreal dwarf rogue with 18/10/17/14/13/5. I find that choosing backstab ay lvl 3 was a huge mistake due to crap stealth mechanic implementation. ( why my rogue can't stay stealthed when my party start a fight? ). And the vanish like ability you get 2/rest? No ty. I think I will restart and avoid the backstab all togheter. Dammit , DA Origins had such a cool rogue system.

 

I believe you can do sneak attacks during first few seconds in a fight. It's not much but you can take down one target really fast.

 

And then what? Get engaged from his angry buddies and insta gib before the fighter show up to tank? Use vanish? that is only 2/rest.

[Ink Blot]

And then what? Get engaged from his angry buddies and insta gib before the fighter show up to tank? Use vanish? that is only 2/rest.

 

You can sneak attack with ranged weapons as well. If you're intent on melee, have your tank sneak in and take aggro. If you get your strikes in during the first couple seconds, then they're sneak attacks. Mobs seem to aggro on the first unit they see, so his buddies should all be focused on the tank.

[Viperswhip]

The main problem with rogues in this game is that when the party enters combat, the whole party is unstealthed, including you. So, if you'd like to sneak in behind an gank their wizards, you have to start with that attack or use one of your invisibilities to get there and I don't think it counts an attack from that as a sneak attack, but I haven't tested it overmuch.

 

So, ya, I use my rogue for scouting, stealing and to pull, she's now a ranged character (to be fair I mostly built her that way), that can way off tank if something gets by my tanks.

[TheVoxyn]

I'm loving this game, man. The only problem is the rogues. I was expecting Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale style rogues/thieves. Soooo not the case. I had my main character set up behind a wall to come out and backstab a dude after another one of my party members pulled a group of enemies, but it unstealthed the whole party and one of the enemies went straight for my rogue. Didn't even do anything to draw attention to him, which was more than a little disappointing and frustrating. I just finished act 1 and I'm seeing that I'm definitely not going to be getting any closer to a straight up assassin character with these stealth mechanics. Should I just cut my losses and restart with a different class? Or suck it up since I've already come this far?

[sendoa]

The rogue class is currently very handicapped by the flawed sneaking mechanism of the game. I hope a patch solves the problem soon.

[dam]

@Olpika :

 

I do not see what blinding the enemy has to do with backstabbing.

Blinding grants more crits from lowering deflection, picking Backstab or not has no influence there, so I fail to see the synergy ?

 

Unless you mean opening with a blinding strike backstab, in which case I hope you maxed your stealth because the stupid skill is hell'a broken right now.

 

 

@TheVoxyn , @Sendoa :

 

My first rogue sucked, and I deleted him after Magran's Fork.

My second rogue melts faces, and behinds, and basically pretty much anything, on Hard difficulty.

 

He's reached level 12 just a few minutes ago, let me share his personal stats while he stands here in Twin Elms at the beginning of Act 3 :

Hits: 2195

Crits: 2140

Highest single target damage: 141

Damage done : 100227

Enemies felled : 801

Time in combat : 3 days, 31 minutes.

 

He has single-handedly done more damage than the whole team combined.

And yes, you've read that right, that's a 50/50 hit-crit ratio.

 

Forget Backstab which is currently not useable nor worthwile, and focus on sustained damage abilities and talents, as well as correct positioning in battle.

Also keep in mind that a Flanked enemy is a Sneak Attack-able enemy.

 

Regarding weapon choice :

 

 

The first 2 acts of the game, you want to run with the 2000 copper Stiletto from Gilded Vale, which has a Jolting Touch proc that crits 3 enemies for 60-80 damage (1 per encounter).

Later on, you'll want to move away from this burst-based weapon to ones more suited to prolonged fights.

You can get either Vicious Stilettos (+20% damage against flanked/prone/stunned) , or Battle Axes (+50% crit damage)

 

 

 

Regarding companions choice :

 

 

The Grieving Mother whom you encounter in Dyrwood village, offers awesome synergy with your rogue through the use of her 2nd level Paralyze

 

 

 

Do pay attention however, to certain rogue-unfriendly encounters for which you may want to use your bow instead, notably the following enemies :

 

 

- Spectres , which deal PBAoE damage on death

- Flame Blights , which deal PBAoE damage on death

- Crystal Eater spiders , which have a frost based nuke with a DoT component

- Cean Gwlas , which have a single target stun dealing AoE raw damage

 

 

 

As long as you position correctly, your rogue will deal unparalleled single target damage.

 

I know the comparison is likely unwelcome here, but forget your DnD rogue, and embrace the spirit of a WoW rogue instead, hitting from behind for prolonged periods of time.

 

I understand your frustration over Backstab being damn hard to use and overwhelmingly lackluster, just build something different and you'll get yourself a very solid leader.

[Valeris]

The further I come into the game, the better rogue becomes.

Especially regarding his fragility things keep getting better. Elder with his Defender Stance + Hold the Line engages the enemies and can lock them up most of the time easily, so my dual wielding rogue isn´t eaten alive. I got my hands on on deflection item, have high resolve (originally taken for dialogue options) stats and the escape-ability. My rogue stopped dying on level 4 and is now perfectly viable in melee.

[dam]

@TheVoxyn , @Sendoa :

Just landed a 99 damage crit, without Backstab.

Just stick with it and you can end up with a great character.

Of course, if you had in mind a more assassin-ish type character, I'm afraid with the current state of Stealth and Backstab you're out of luck :/

 

 

@Valeris :

Be careful not to confuse engagement and aggro, Eder can engage 3 enemies (even 4 or 5 depending on talents and melee weapon), but these enemies are still at liberty to switch targets and focus your rogue instead.

 

By the way unless you've got someone else doing that, you want to get your Mechanics score to 11, some traps require a score of 12 but you can get +1 from resting in Caed Nua.

[sean10mm]

Rogues are about sneak attacks.  Stop trying to think of them as D&D backstabs, they're different.

 

You get sneak attacks:

 

At any range

When attacking out of stealth, or the first second or two of combat if one of your other characters breaks stealth first

Against any enemy that is engaged with someone else

Against any enemy with practically any kind of debuff effect on them

 

That's a long list!  

 

The backstab talent you can select works more like old-school D&D backstabbing but with the way stealth works in the game it's hard to use decently until you can turn invisible.

[AlphaMagnum]

How do crits work? Do they multiply the final damage after all other modifiers? Or just add 50% to the 20% from Reckless Assault, 24% from Might, etc?

[TomGx]

@Olpika :

 

I do not see what blinding the enemy has to do with backstabbing.

Blinding grants more crits from lowering deflection, picking Backstab or not has no influence there, so I fail to see the synergy ?

 

Unless you mean opening with a blinding strike backstab, in which case I hope you maxed your stealth because the stupid skill is hell'a broken right now.

 

 

@TheVoxyn , @Sendoa :

 

My first rogue sucked, and I deleted him after Magran's Fork.

My second rogue melts faces, and behinds, and basically pretty much anything, on Hard difficulty.

 

He's reached level 12 just a few minutes ago, let me share his personal stats while he stands here in Twin Elms at the beginning of Act 3 :

Hits: 2195

Crits: 2140

Highest single target damage: 141

Damage done : 100227

Enemies felled : 801

Time in combat : 3 days, 31 minutes.

 

He has single-handedly done more damage than the whole team combined.

And yes, you've read that right, that's a 50/50 hit-crit ratio.

 

Forget Backstab which is currently not useable nor worthwile, and focus on sustained damage abilities and talents, as well as correct positioning in battle.

Also keep in mind that a Flanked enemy is a Sneak Attack-able enemy.

 

Regarding weapon choice :

 

 

The first 2 acts of the game, you want to run with the 2000 copper Stiletto from Gilded Vale, which has a Jolting Touch proc that crits 3 enemies for 60-80 damage (1 per encounter).

Later on, you'll want to move away from this burst-based weapon to ones more suited to prolonged fights.

You can get either Vicious Stilettos (+20% damage against flanked/prone/stunned) , or Battle Axes (+50% crit damage)

 

 

 

Regarding companions choice :

 

 

The Grieving Mother whom you encounter in Dyrwood village, offers awesome synergy with your rogue through the use of her 2nd level Paralyze

 

 

 

Do pay attention however, to certain rogue-unfriendly encounters for which you may want to use your bow instead, notably the following enemies :

 

 

- Spectres , which deal PBAoE damage on death

- Flame Blights , which deal PBAoE damage on death

- Crystal Eater spiders , which have a frost based nuke with a DoT component

- Cean Gwlas , which have a single target stun dealing AoE raw damage

 

 

 

As long as you position correctly, your rogue will deal unparalleled single target damage.

 

I know the comparison is likely unwelcome here, but forget your DnD rogue, and embrace the spirit of a WoW rogue instead, hitting from behind for prolonged periods of time.

 

I understand your frustration over Backstab being damn hard to use and overwhelmingly lackluster, just build something different and you'll get yourself a very solid leader.

Uhm.. looks very powerfull! I started yesterday with a rogue, can you tell me your rogue build please?

[dam]

The backstab talent you can select works more like old-school D&D backstabbing but with the way stealth works in the game it's hard to use decently until you can turn invisible.

 

Even then, that's two talents (or is it 1 talent and 1 ability ? bah) for a combo you can trigger just twice per rest , that's just so not worth it.

 

Even  if the invisibility trick had been 1/encounter , the invisibility alone would be worth it, but not Backstab itself.

 

 

I'm afraid the devs have miscalculated (and mis-tested) on this one.

I mean, motherflipper's called Backstab, would have made sense to let it trigger when you hit someone from the back perhaps...

 

Hopefully there may be balance changes in future updates, one can only hope.

 

 

Edit:

 

I'm afraid Finishing Blow is much the same, I think it's 2/rest ?

Definitely not worth picking.

 

Basically, rogues are pretty fun to play and veritable powerhouses when you position them correctly, but they require lots of micro and jeez, you just won't get to use skills much, just autoattack like a tool.

Edited April 2, 2015 by dam

[AlphaMagnum]

Why swap from Stilettos to Battle Axes (or whatever weapon you choose)?

 

Does enemy HP get so high that the proc is less useful? Or are crits actually that much better?

[Valeris]

 

Basically, rogues are pretty fun to play and veritable powerhouses when you position them correctly, but they require lots of micro and jeez, you just won't get to use skills much, just autoattack like a tool.

 

To be fair, this is true for all classes not flagged primarily as "casters".

Tanking fighters can pracicatlly function with one active ability alone (Knockdown), rest is passives, stances and the like.

 

You can, however, make a rogue smashing buttons if you take both blinding and crippling strike (though the latter is less usefull on a melee rogue) and take talents like the poison strike (3x per rest) and all of the other per rest/per encounter attacks rogue get later on.

Between potions and weapon switching (what good rogues will do from time to time) there is actually enough action going on for a pure melee class.

[Lasci]

Backstab is bad. So is Escape.

 

Max might and dexterity and experiment with weapon styles until you find something that satisfies you -- don't pigeon hole yourself into playing with a specific weapon style or weapon group early. Wait until you get to level six to choose a weapon style. I honestly don't recommend picking up weapon focus on anybody but a fighter. 

 

Start every fight with a gunshot from stealth for high damage. Then run behind your tank line and wait for them to distract the enemy before moving back in -- assuming you're melee and not ranged, of course. 

 

That's literally all there is to playing a rogue. Just experiment a bit. Ranged, melee, dual-wielding -- whatever. You aren't punished for not sticking to a specific weapon in this game.

Edited April 2, 2015 by Lasci