Backstab rogue?

[Infiltrator_SF]

I've returned to PoE, not having played the expansions and I read a lot of changes were done to rogues, specifically backstab and its mechanics. Is it viable now? Can you do something akin to BG2 (which I loved) where you go on a stab fiesta with invisibility potions/abilites?

 

If so, what are the optimal builds for that, I tried searching but I haven't came up with much other than people agreeing how backstab is viable now.

[Boeroer]

Backstab was buffed from +100% bonus damage to +150%. That bonus stacks with the bonus from Sneak Attack and also Deathblows. Sneak Attack's bonus will be added every time because attacking from stealth or invisibility also counts as Sneak Attack.

 

Backstab also works with ranged weapons if you're 2m away (maximum). So - an backstab from an arquebus can be pretty deadly. Daggers or Stilettos however - although the classic weapons for backstabbing, don't do anything special with backstabs and are rather weak because they have low base damage and normally you can't do a lot of backstabs in quick succession. Only exception is Feign Death (see below).

 

There are no potions for invisibility. However, you can backstab from stealth (there's individual stealth now) at the start of the encounter.

In addition to that, there are some talents for the rogue which grant invisibility. There are also two items (that I remember) which can be used to become invisible.

 

The talents are Shadowing Beyond and Feign Death. Shadowing Beyond makes you invisible two times per rest and will vanish once you cast a spell or start an attack, but those attacks will count as backstabs. You can use Feign Death once per encounter and it sends you prone and protects you from damage for some time - after that you will get up and be invisible for a base duration of 6 seconds. At the moment this invisibility stays active even if you attack. Which means you can squeeze in some more backstabs if you're fast.

 

The items I mentioned are the Cape of the Master Mystic and the soulbound mace Nightshroud.

The cape makes you invisible when you receive a critical hit - which is very convenient because the enemy will stop attacking you. You can then flee or attack with a backstab (which will make you visible again). This works once per encounter and also gives you +12 deflection.

Nightshroud gives you one additional use of Shadowing Beyond per rest - so you will have 3/rest.

 

Maybe there are other means of adding uses per rest that I'm not aware of - I don't play many rogues these days.

 

There are also experts on this forum who tested the mechanics of Backstab and exactly know which attacks can be done as backstabs (Full Attacks for example), how big the window of opportunity is and so on.

Edited June 25, 2016 by Boeroer

[Infiltrator_SF]

Thank you for the insight, now all I need to do is figure out what kind of build is optimal because I'm kind of bad when it comes to mechanics of this game - dual wield/single weild, stat/talent allocation and such, I have been out of the game too much to know which works best with backstab, but the basic BG2 concept of stabbing stuff like in the olden days should work now?

[Boeroer]

Not the same, but it got better. Dual wielding sabres seems to be a good choice - because they have high base damage and it seems that you an hit more than once with backstab out of stealth. And with Feign Death dual wielding gives you more hits in 6 seconds because you will hit way faster than with a single weapon.

[Infiltrator_SF]

Yeah sabres look nice. What about stats? You think dumping res is worth the offensive stats?

[Loren Tyr]

Generally speaking I'd say you can't quite go the BG-style backstabbing route, because as Boeroer notes there aren't nearly as many possibilities to turn yourself invisible (though that's a wise decision design-wise, I'd say). I see it more as a nice extra damage boost for rogues at the beginning of combat, and a trick to pull out of the bag with for example Shadowing Beyond as needed. So it's more "backstab-optimized" rogue, rather than something the character entirely revolves around. 

 

In terms of weapons, DW sabres or something two-handed is advisable, you'll want the high base damage. Arquebus is also nice for this of course, though it's a bit more finnicky to get the distance right (the 2m distance is checked when you actually fire rather than when the attack animation starts, by the way); don't use Blunderbuss though, if you're using WF: Ruffian go for a Pistol instead. 

 

Three things to keep in mind:

- in principle you get two backstabs, the second attack also gets one. This applies regardless of weapon type/style, even firearms (provided the target is still alive and within 2m). However, this only happens if you don't interfere with the auto-attacking. If you click to attack after the first attack was made you don't get the second backstab (even if you clicked to attack the same target).

- if you click-attack when in stealth you always (in principle) get a backstab, even if you are unstealthed before performing the actual attack. As such, even a rogue with 0 stealth crawling towards his target would get to backstab. The 'in principle' being again that you don't interfere in the meantime, and also that you don't get intercepted by another enemy before you reach the target. Also, in this case you don't get the second backstab, that only happens when your first attack was from stealth or invisibility.

- in principle (caveat trifecta!) backstab works with Strike abilities now. It does have two bugs though: it doesn't work when attacking from Invisibility (I only tested with Shadowing Beyond, but assume it is a general Invisibility issue), this completely suppresses the Backstab. Backstab + Strike only works from Stealth. Secondly, it only half works when dual-wielding: the first Backstab is suppressed, you only get one on the second attack; this actually counts as the first Backstab though, will still happen when you become unstealthed before the first attack hits. The likely reason for this is that Full Attack special abilities like Strikes (but also eg. Knockdown) attack with the offhand weapon first for some reason. 

 

 

(note: the above is all as per 3.03 [beta], Backstab in 3.02 still has some additional issues)

[Boeroer]

Might doesn't matter too much, with +50% from Sneak + 150% from Backstab (and maybe +100 from Deathblows later on) the puny effect of might is neglectible.

 

Constitution shouldn't be too low, but I guess 10 will be ok if you kill single foes quickly enough and don't run right into mobs.

 

Dexterity is not as important as you might think. Dual wielding itself gives you a 50% speed bonus, Two Handed Style another +20%. Then you can have things like Outlander's Frenzy (+25%) and durgan steel for your weapons (+15%). So a bonus from DEX doesn't do as much as for somebody who's wielding a two hander or a bow and so on.

 

Perception is always nice for a rogue. The more crits the better. And interruots help you to survive. An enemy that gets interrupoted all the time can't fight back.

 

Intelligence is more important if you're solo - in a party others can provide the afflictions for your sneak attacks and deathblows. But you don't want to gimp your invisibility's duration too much, so I wouldn't dump it.

 

Resolution (for me) is more important than most other stats on a dual wielding melee rogue. I hate to get interrupted. You dps suffers and you will probably get killed. Too many critical hits are also very bad for a rogue's whimpy endurance. Always remember: a dead rogue deals zero damage.

 

So, as you can see, I think you an have a fairly balanced stat spread without gimping your character.

 

If you want to take Veteran's Recovery (which can be pretty nice on a dual wielding rogue to prevent knockouts) then I would raise MIG and INT after maxing PER. Then put points into CON and RES and then DEX.   

[Kaylon]

Feign Death is very nice for backstab and with 30int you can even have 12s of free backstabbing (however anything but auto attacks will break the invisibility) - but before you have to lay down for 20s which is very bad when you play in a party... However there's a trick - if you wear an armor with the Break Out enchantment (Blaidh Golain, Pike's Pride) you will reduce the prone duration by 50% (unfortunately only the base duration is halfed) giving you also 5s of god mode...

 

Blaidh Golain has however a better synergy in a party with a 3int rogue - the prone part will be reduced to only 1.5s and you'll have 5s of god mode + 3.9s of invisibility... Of course at lv15, with a party, all that is pretty pointless when you can have god mode for the entire party with the Defensive Mindweb trick... 

[Kingsman]

Backstab was buffed from +100% bonus damage to +150%. That bonus stacks with the bonus from Sneak Attack and also Deathblows. Sneak Attack's bonus will be added every time because attacking from stealth or invisibility also counts as Sneak Attack.

 

Backstab also works with ranged weapons if you're 2m away (maximum). So - an backstab from an arquebus can be pretty deadly. Daggers or Stilettos however - although the classic weapons for backstabbing, don't do anything special with backstabs and are rather weak because they have low base damage and normally you can't do a lot of backstabs in quick succession. Only exception is Feign Death (see below).

 

There are no potions for invisibility. However, you can backstab from stealth (there's individual stealth now) at the start of the encounter.

In addition to that, there are some talents for the rogue which grant invisibility. There are also two items (that I remember) which can be used to become invisible.

 

The talents are Shadowing Beyond and Feign Death. Shadowing Beyond makes you invisible two times per rest and will vanish once you cast a spell or start an attack, but those attacks will count as backstabs. You can use Feign Death once per encounter and it sends you prone and protects you from damage for some time - after that you will get up and be invisible for a base duration of 6 seconds. At the moment this invisibility stays active even if you attack. Which means you can squeeze in some more backstabs if you're fast.

 

The items I mentioned are the Cape of the Master Mystic and the soulbound mace Nightshroud.

The cape makes you invisible when you receive a critical hit - which is very convenient because the enemy will stop attacking you. You can then flee or attack with a backstab (which will make you visible again). This works once per encounter and also gives you +12 deflection.

Nightshroud gives you one additional use of Shadowing Beyond per rest - so you will have 3/rest.

 

Maybe there are other means of adding uses per rest that I'm not aware of - I don't play many rogues these days.

 

There are also experts on this forum who tested the mechanics of Backstab and exactly know which attacks can be done as backstabs (Full Attacks for example), how big the window of opportunity is and so on.

Great run down from obviously an expert who knows his (her) stuff.

 

But.....

 

I would not recommend building a rogue based on backstabs. You will have far more powerful abilities to choose from at level up that do not involve, plainly, the backstab talent or talents that make you invisible. If you are rolling a rogue, build the rogue to concentrate on critical hits, sneak attacks and deathblows. Don't bother with backstabs, escapes, invis ect....You want to avoid getting in the position to have to escape, turn invis in the first place and a priest or a cipher will be able to buff you out of this problem effectively, especially on any difficulty other the n POTD. Rogues on POTD are not that good IMHO because of there poor survivability but on all over difficulties they are walking gods who will out damage your entire party combined.

[mukurome]

Feign Death is very nice for backstab and with 30int you can even have 12s of free backstabbing (however anything but auto attacks will break the invisibility) - but before you have to lay down for 20s which is very bad when you play in a party... However there's a trick - if you wear an armor with the Break Out enchantment (Blaidh Golain, Pike's Pride) you will reduce the prone duration by 50% (unfortunately only the base duration is halfed) giving you also 5s of god mode...

 

Blaidh Golain has however a better synergy in a party with a 3int rogue - the prone part will be reduced to only 1.5s and you'll have 5s of god mode + 3.9s of invisibility... Of course at lv15, with a party, all that is pretty pointless when you can have god mode for the entire party with the Defensive Mindweb trick... 

Hmm it sounds nice when we play rogue with party, but when i play solo, this skill seems broken - when we go prone fight will be over, and before we get all of our attack skill back, fight will start again, and we loose our main adventage. Or maybe i just did not test it too much ? Anyway rogue seems to be a good choice for solo in 3.03

 

Edit - just test this skill solo - broken :/

Edited June 28, 2016 by mukurome

[Kaylon]

When you solo you have to use a figurine to keep you in combat during feign death.

[Boeroer]

Man, that's lame.

[Loren Tyr]

 

I would not recommend building a rogue based on backstabs. You will have far more powerful abilities to choose from at level up that do not involve, plainly, the backstab talent or talents that make you invisible. If you are rolling a rogue, build the rogue to concentrate on critical hits, sneak attacks and deathblows. Don't bother with backstabs, escapes, invis ect....You want to avoid getting in the position to have to escape, turn invis in the first place and a priest or a cipher will be able to buff you out of this problem effectively, especially on any difficulty other the n POTD. Rogues on POTD are not that good IMHO because of there poor survivability but on all over difficulties they are walking gods who will out damage your entire party combined.

 

 

A backstab-oriented rogue is perfectly viable, not sure why you would recommend against it. One of the best things about this game is that there are generally a lot of different ways of building any class of character, you hardly need to stick to a specific path (besides, if you take backstab you're still going to be sneak attacking and probably deathblowing anyway, it's like they're mutually exclusive). Maybe *you* want your rogue to avoid getting too much in the thick of things, maybe others do. 

 

Besides, talents like Escape and Shadowing Beyond aren't just useful for getting out of a sticky situation; they're also useful as offensive tools, allowing you to manoeuver across the battlefield and (say) get rid of an obnoxious mage. With Backstab the Shadowing Beyond just gets an extra "+150% damage on your next two attacks against target enemy" (on top of any Sneak Attack/Deathblows it may already be facilitating, of course). 

[Kingsman]

 

I would not recommend building a rogue based on backstabs. You will have far more powerful abilities to choose from at level up that do not involve, plainly, the backstab talent or talents that make you invisible. If you are rolling a rogue, build the rogue to concentrate on critical hits, sneak attacks and deathblows. Don't bother with backstabs, escapes, invis ect....You want to avoid getting in the position to have to escape, turn invis in the first place and a priest or a cipher will be able to buff you out of this problem effectively, especially on any difficulty other the n POTD. Rogues on POTD are not that good IMHO because of there poor survivability but on all over difficulties they are walking gods who will out damage your entire party combined.

 

A backstab-oriented rogue is perfectly viable, not sure why you would recommend against it. One of the best things about this game is that there are generally a lot of different ways of building any class of character, you hardly need to stick to a specific path (besides, if you take backstab you're still going to be sneak attacking and probably deathblowing anyway, it's like they're mutually exclusive). Maybe *you* want your rogue to avoid getting too much in the thick of things, maybe others do.

 

Besides, talents like Escape and Shadowing Beyond aren't just useful for getting out of a sticky situation; they're also useful as offensive tools, allowing you to manoeuver across the battlefield and (say) get rid of an obnoxious mage. With Backstab the Shadowing Beyond just gets an extra "+150% damage on your next two attacks against target enemy" (on top of any Sneak Attack/Deathblows it may already be facilitating, of course).

You will have to sacrifice some of your potential to effectively crit, sneak attack or land deathblows if you want to go down the path of building a backstab rogue. You will need the backstab talent and probably at least 2 other talents to help set up the backstab like shadowing beyond. You will also probably put a lot of skill points into stealth at the cost of athletics, survival and lore. If your select backstab you would be stupid to not select other talents to help you set up the backstabs. Just selecting 1 talent would not be worth it as your backstabbing potential is extremely limited. So yes you would need to spend at least 3 talents to effectively backstab.

 

Using the 2 critical hit talents to increase crits to 20% is in my opinion better then sneak attacks and deathblows because a rogue has naturally high accuracy and with the Addison of these talents will crit most of the time even on POTD. Your rogue will dish put far more damage with sneak attacks and deathblows compared to what he can do with backstab. Sneaks and deathblows are useful throughout an entire fight remember unlike backstab that predominantly most useful at the start of a fight if entered in stealth mode or when you break engagement and re- enter from invis.

 

No brainer IMO

Edited June 29, 2016 by Kingsman

[Boeroer]

It depends. I can imagine that a solo rogue can be played very effectively with backstab. When solo you might want to take high Stealth and Shadowing Beyond anyways. Does anybody know if Finishing Blow works with Backstab so that the dmg modifiers add up?

[DreamWayfarer]

Backstabs can be a good way to give more burst to Rogues wielding two-handed weapons, as they get much less mileage from Full Attacks, but stacking damage multipliers benefits them greatly. Imagine Backstab + Sneak Attack + Deathblows on FIREBRAND or maybe Hours(if you crit).

 

However they are not supposed to be the core of a build, only a nice plus, and I am still going to test how viable my specific idea of a greatsword hearth orlan Rogue focused on crits, mobility and the ocasional backstab is.

Edited June 29, 2016 by DreamWayfarer

[Loren Tyr]

 

You will have to sacrifice some of your potential to effectively crit, sneak attack or land deathblows if you want to go down the path of building a backstab rogue. You will need the backstab talent and probably at least 2 other talents to help set up the backstab like shadowing beyond. You will also probably put a lot of skill points into stealth at the cost of athletics, survival and lore. If your select backstab you would be stupid to not select other talents to help you set up the backstabs. Just selecting 1 talent would not be worth it as your backstabbing potential is extremely limited. So yes you would need to spend at least 3 talents to effectively backstab.

 

Using the 2 critical hit talents to increase crits to 20% is in my opinion better then sneak attacks and deathblows because a rogue has naturally high accuracy and with the Addison of these talents will crit most of the time even on POTD. Your rogue will dish put far more damage with sneak attacks and deathblows compared to what he can do with backstab. Sneaks and deathblows are useful throughout an entire fight remember unlike backstab that predominantly most useful at the start of a fight if entered in stealth mode or when you break engagement and re- enter from invis.

 

No brainer IMO

 

 

Firstly, taking just Backstab works fine as well. You still get one or two (depending on circumstances and target) +150% damage bumps at the beginning of most combats (you can easily get one even with horrid stealth by the way, though my rogues generally invest in stealth regardless of having Backstab anyway). A +10% crit chance by comparison gives you at best +5% chance at +50% damage, which means statistically you'd need about 60 attacks in a combat to get to the same bonus damage as a single backstab, or 120 for two backstabs. If you compare +20% crit chance vs Backstab + Shadowing Beyond that drops to 30 / 60 attacks, not counting any additional ones facilitated by Shadowing Beyond. Obviously there are further differences (crit also increases durations of eg. Strikes but Backstab is better against high DR, Shadowing Beyond gives one or two backstabs at will and does more than just enable Backstab), but the choice is hardly as obvious as you make it out to be. Both are viable options with different pros and cons, the only reason I can think of why you would call it a no-brainer is that you simply never really thought about it to any degree. 

[Boeroer]

 

 

I am still going to test how viable my specific idea of a greatsword hearth orlan Rogue focused on crits, mobility and the ocasional backstab is.

 

That was the first rogue I ever played: a Hours of St. Rumbalt crit build. It was very nice. One really good thing about it is that you can trigger Deathblows just by flanking (flanked + prone). So I didn't take many of those special attack abilities which cause afflictions - only Blinding Strike. I didn't take Backstab though. Back then we didn't have individual stealth and it was kind of a suicide mission for a rogue to go in first to get a Backstab. But we also didn't have immunities to prone.

Edited June 29, 2016 by Boeroer

[DreamWayfarer]

Plus, you can always have both and remove other talents instead. I mean, Rogues aren't the most talent starved class, are they?

 

Ninja-ed by Boeroer. I was replying to the poster above him.

Edited June 29, 2016 by DreamWayfarer

[Boeroer]

 

Yeah that was me, shadowing beyond...

[Elric Galad]

Backstabs can be a good way to give more burst to Rogues wielding two-handed weapons, as they get much less mileage from Full Attacks, but stacking damage multipliers benefits them greatly. Imagine Backstab + Sneak Attack + Deathblows on FIREBRAND or maybe Hours(if you crit).

 

However they are not supposed to be the core of a build, only a nice plus, and I am still going to test how viable my specific idea of a greatsword hearth orlan Rogue focused on crits, mobility and the ocasional backstab is.

I think Obsidian should note this point for PoE2.

 

People want Rogue to use more dirty tricks like backstab, not just (a bit conditional) DPS.

 

And people want more martial Paladins ^^

[Loren Tyr]

Plus, you can always have both and remove other talents instead. I mean, Rogues aren't the most talent starved class, are they?

 

Ninja-ed by Boeroer. I was replying to the poster above him.

 

Certainly. Plenty of ways to build a rogue in that regard, one of the many reasons to like the class . 

 

Backstabbing with something like Firebrand is quite hilarious by the way, especially if you crit with its extra big crit multiplier (and especially especially if you Deathblow as well). +400% damage FTW. It's a pity you can't do it from stealth though...

Edited June 29, 2016 by Loren Tyr

[MasterCipher]

Could add hat with simpleton effect to bring INT down to 1 for the fd backstabber. For the curious, liberating exhortation and suppress affliction don't work. Rogues are good (deathblows scrolls/items is awesome), but without early fd stand-up and earlier access to fd, I still have a hard time picking over other AoE DPS classes because there aren't enough hard single target dps encounters and the AoE DPS classes also bring utility to the party.

[Boeroer]

You can do it from stealth - if the party members attack first and place afflictions.

 

Why is 1 INT good? Can't remember. Because of the prone part of Feign Death? But wouldn't the duration of the invisibility phase suffer also? Wouldn't Blaidh Golan (-50% prone duration) or Belt of the Stelgaer (-33%) be better?

Edited June 30, 2016 by Boeroer