Rogue Questions.

[Gary1986]

When the new expansion comes out, it will be my first time i get to use a rogue (I only use in game characters)

 

I have two questions.

 

Savage Attack or Reckless Assault? Is the decrease in accuracy from savage attack more noticeable than the decrease in deflection from reckless assault?

 

Whats the best way to bump up deflection other than a ring of deflection? 

[gkathellar]

1) You can use both at once. IIRC, the math around Savage Attack works out to it being a good choice nearly 100% of the time. And honestly, rogues are so generally fragile that unless you're specifically going for a tankier build, reckless assault's deflection penalty is pretty meaningless.

 

2) Shields, followed by Cautious Attack.

[Gary1986]

If i went for a build like this

 

Vulnerable Attack + Savage attack

Sword and Shield (Used a small shield)

 

And for main weapon i used a rapier or dagger. Would that give me the best of both worlds?

Edited July 18, 2015 by Gary1986

[AshenPlanet]

1. savage attack is the one to go for.  If you are mostly fighting with an advantage (ie. against flanked, blinded, prone, weakened, etc. opponents), you will have no trouble hitting and criting, 

2. Deflection is very important to a rogue, get it as high as you can if you want to do as much sustained dps as possible.  Ring, Superior deflection talent, max perception and resolve.  Shields have no place on a rogue.  When every attack you make gets boosted by deathblows, sneak attack, savage, etc. there really is no good option that compares to dual wielding fast weapons.

 

 

 

[AndreaColombo]

If i went for a build like this

 

Vulnerable Attack + Savage attack

Sword and Shield (Used a small shield)

 

And for main weapon i used a rapier or dagger. Would that give me the best of both worlds?

 

A small shield would give you some deflection, but not really as much as to justify taking it instead of dual-wielding. Rogue is a DPS class; it is not meant to off-tank. Two-Weapon Fighting, on the other hand, grants you a +20% attack speed that offsets the penalty from Vulnerable Attack quite beautifully. If you get Gauntlets of Accuracy to offset the penalty from Savage Attack too, your enemies will be in for a treat.

 

Ideally your Rogue should not go into the fray and be engaged. They should flank enemies and sneak-attack them while they are busy trying to hit your tanks or off-tanks. Deflection really isn't that important on a well-played Rogue unless you are soloing.

Edited July 18, 2015 by AndreaColombo

[Nobear]

I'll just be another voice stressing that I agree that shields are (currently) a bad idea for a rogue, even small shields. That said, I read in one of the articles covering the early expansion content at E3 that they saw the companion rogue with a ranged weapon + shield, implying there might be some surprise change(s) making current rogue discussion obsolete by the time the expansion comes out. There was another post a while back asking a similar question, and I gave a similar answer.

 

What we do know is that the expansion will bring individual stealth, meaning what Andrea says about how things should ideally work for a rogue, should work more reliably in the expansion. Presumably, you'll be able to have your rogue remain stealthed while the rest of your party is detected, enabling you to send your rogue in a moment later and actually catch the enemy off guard.

 

Even currently, the best defense is usually offense. It is almost always better, when your rogue (or any other non-tank) is attacked, to CC and focus fire the offender so he dies before he has a chance to actually kill anyone. In other words, just when you might think you'd need a shield most on non-tanks, is the most important time to maximize your DPS instead.

Edited July 18, 2015 by Nobear

[gkathellar]

 

If i went for a build like this

 

Vulnerable Attack + Savage attack

Sword and Shield (Used a small shield)

 

And for main weapon i used a rapier or dagger. Would that give me the best of both worlds?

 

A small shield would give you some deflection, but not really as much as to justify taking it instead of dual-wielding. Rogue is a DPS class; it is not meant to off-tank. Two-Weapon Fighting, on the other hand, grants you a +20% attack speed that offsets the penalty from Vulnerable Attack quite beautifully. If you get Gauntlets of Accuracy to offset the penalty from Savage Attack too, your enemies will be in for a treat.

 

Ideally your Rogue should not go into the fray and be engaged. They should flank enemies and sneak-attack them while they are busy trying to hit your tanks or off-tanks. Deflection really isn't that important on a well-played Rogue unless you are soloing.

 

Or trying to use Riposte for some reason.

 

(Don't use Riposte).

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

 

I run my Rogue without armor (minimal damage reduction to maintain speed), and deflection is poor (why on Earth would your DPS Rogue have max Res or Per, when you need max Might & Dex to get high DPS?). I use Reckless assault (you can get a talent to improve deflection when using this too). When it comes to deflection, even if you try to stack a +10 deflection item, a shield, and take talents like superior deflection, your deflection will still be low compared to a tank character, and you will still get hit. I find that I don't pay attention to deflection and I just manage the Rogue instead of carelessly letting him run into a problem. My Rogue attacks things that are already engaged with my Tank(s), or goes after a single target like a caster. And if a mob surrounds him, he Shadowing Beyonds out.

 

None of my non-tank characters have deflection scores worth talking about. But if you manage your group and manage engagements, it's not a big deal. And they're all con 3~5 too.

 

Very best,

[Nobear]

Heya,

 

I run my Rogue without armor (minimal damage reduction to maintain speed), and deflection is poor (why on Earth would your DPS Rogue have max Res or Per, when you need max Might & Dex to get high DPS?). I use Reckless assault (you can get a talent to improve deflection when using this too). When it comes to deflection, even if you try to stack a +10 deflection item, a shield, and take talents like superior deflection, your deflection will still be low compared to a tank character, and you will still get hit. I find that I don't pay attention to deflection and I just manage the Rogue instead of carelessly letting him run into a problem. My Rogue attacks things that are already engaged with my Tank(s), or goes after a single target like a caster. And if a mob surrounds him, he Shadowing Beyonds out.

 

None of my non-tank characters have deflection scores worth talking about. But if you manage your group and manage engagements, it's not a big deal. And they're all con 3~5 too.

 

Very best,

 

I mostly agree with this. I will say, though, that if you're min-maxing, and Str and Dex are only two stats, that does leave freedom to (if you so desire) max another too. Currently, Res is a good candidate so that you can keep your DPS up while being hit. And the OP is having a hypothetical discussion about the expansion, so as far as we know Per could make sense to max if you highly value accuracy.

 

In addition, some players point out that Str has the weakest effect for a rogue compared to any other class, because the rogue has so many other things that much more dramatically boost their damage (like deathblows, and the faction talent if you go Doemenel). So some players prefer to drop a few points in Str for some more Per/Res, especially for soloing. I'd probably still go for squeezing out every last drop of DPS before raising other things, but you could make an argument for something a little different, statwise. In either case, shields seem like a very bad idea (again: in the current game; who knows what surprises the expansion may bring).

Edited July 19, 2015 by Nobear

[AshenPlanet]

Not bothering with deflection and only attacking things that are already engaged by your 'tank' means that you're either 1. playing on easy mode or 2. holding back your rogue half the time which massively reduces her dps.

 

First off, why bother having any tanks at all if you are playing a rogue as your main char?

You are just asking mobs to attack your rogue making you waste time and damage output running around and disengaging.

You can make your fighter or paladin offensive as well with a 2hander or dual-weilding - don't worry,  there is zero danger of anyone doing more damage than your rogue (unless it's a bad rogue build).

 

Maxing Dex, Per and Res doesn't cost a rogue much, since int has no use whatsoever for a rogue, you can max all 3 of those stats and still have your might 3 points from max, and might means very little to a high level rogue, they get most of their damage from deathblows/sneak attacks, and might bonus is additive, not multiplicative.

 

I've played it both ways, with as high a deflection as you can get and without, and the high deflection rogue has much much better DPS output.

You don't have to go back and forth engaging/disengaging or waiting for other characters to engage, you can just jump right in and do as much damage as possible throughout the fight.

 

[Nobear]

When I said a case could be made... I was thinking of AshenPlanet to make the case lol. He makes a pretty compelling one I think.

[Luckmann]

 

 

If i went for a build like this

 

Vulnerable Attack + Savage attack

Sword and Shield (Used a small shield)

 

And for main weapon i used a rapier or dagger. Would that give me the best of both worlds?

 

A small shield would give you some deflection, but not really as much as to justify taking it instead of dual-wielding. Rogue is a DPS class; it is not meant to off-tank. Two-Weapon Fighting, on the other hand, grants you a +20% attack speed that offsets the penalty from Vulnerable Attack quite beautifully. If you get Gauntlets of Accuracy to offset the penalty from Savage Attack too, your enemies will be in for a treat.

 

Ideally your Rogue should not go into the fray and be engaged. They should flank enemies and sneak-attack them while they are busy trying to hit your tanks or off-tanks. Deflection really isn't that important on a well-played Rogue unless you are soloing.

 

Or trying to use Riposte for some reason.

 

(Don't use Riposte).

 

 

If Constitution gets fixed (so it's not absolutely super-terrible for.. everyone, I guess) the first thing I'm testing is a tankish Rogue built around Riposte.

 

...actually no, I can't do that, I was doing the pathological liar rogue backstabber, damn.

 

Dammit, I've got too many rogues planned.

[gkathellar]

Not bothering with deflection and only attacking things that are already engaged by your 'tank' means that you're either 1. playing on easy mode or 2. holding back your rogue half the time which massively reduces her dps.

 

First off, why bother having any tanks at all if you are playing a rogue as your main char?

You are just asking mobs to attack your rogue making you waste time and damage output running around and disengaging.

You can make your fighter or paladin offensive as well with a 2hander or dual-weilding - don't worry,  there is zero danger of anyone doing more damage than your rogue (unless it's a bad rogue build).

 

Maxing Dex, Per and Res doesn't cost a rogue much, since int has no use whatsoever for a rogue, you can max all 3 of those stats and still have your might 3 points from max, and might means very little to a high level rogue, they get most of their damage from deathblows/sneak attacks, and might bonus is additive, not multiplicative.

 

I've played it both ways, with as high a deflection as you can get and without, and the high deflection rogue has much much better DPS output.

You don't have to go back and forth engaging/disengaging or waiting for other characters to engage, you can just jump right in and do as much damage as possible throughout the fight.

 

Yeah, I certainly agree that, "don't ever get targeted" is not a viable strategy for melee rogues (or any melee character). If your rogue is in close range, they will come under fire sometimes, and they will need a combination of Deflection, DR and Endurance to survive that. And as you say, none of those require a huge investment - high defensive stats and some magic item investment don't really have much in the way of opportunity costs. The only signiifcant decision revolves around shield use.

 

Of course, all of this ignores that melee rogues suck and ranged DPS is way better

Edited July 19, 2015 by gkathellar

[VahnXIII]

Not sure if this applies, but I like to post this build for anyone asking questions about the rogue class: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/79744-tcs-rogue-dw-sabre-4-shot-thaos-1-bs-1-cs/

 

It is a very effective build for solo play, but with some tweaks you can have a rogue that meshes well with party play and they will quickly become your top killer,

[Gary1986]

Can you use Reckless Assault, Savage Attack and Vulnerable Attack all at the same time? 

[bigwillystyle]

For a rogue, your first six picks should almost always be: 

 

your choice of affliction (blind or hobble)

weapon focus of choice

vicious & dirty fighting

reckless assault

your choice of two weapon fighting or 2hand fighting style

 

level 7 is usually the affliction I didn't pick at lvl1

level 8 is savage attack for sabres or 2handers OR vulnerable attack for light weapon specialists

 

...

level 11 is deathblows

 

Other than that it's all good and all gravy

[Boeroer]

You can indeed use all offensive modals at the same time.

[AndreaColombo]

You can even use Vulnerable Attack with an Estoc for a whopping 10 DR bypass.