Are Retaliate Rogues viable?

[Isaea]

Hey guys, so as the title says - i was thinking of playing Retaliate Rogue using Sura shield and Ill Coat armor to stack some Retaliation. Does it work well with Riposte and Deep Wounds? How much damage can such Rogue do? Is it worth it? I know anything can work on lower difficulties but I'm thinking PotD difficulty not necessarily solo.

Edited February 18, 2017 by Isaea

[Heijoushin]

I haven't actually tried, but I'm guessing not very viable. Rogues are squishy, and function best either attacking from a distance, or stabbing someone already engaged with a tank. A retaliate rogue would have to go toe-to-toe with the enemy, and on PotD, I'm thinking that would be fatal.

[Boeroer]

It works OKish but it's not superpowerful. The problem is that you want to catch grazes in order to trigger retaliation and also riposte. But the rogue's health is so low that - even with fat armor - you have to rest all the time.

Deep Wounds works with retaliation, but it can't be stacked.

[Madscientist]

When thinking about retaliate, the only useful chars I can think of are fire godlike barbariens or monks with tons of mig and con. (There are some builds around here).

So even when you get hit and maybe come below 50%endurance, you still have more if it than most chars who are fully healed.

 

Are there any good builds, who return some damage when they are attacked and they are NOT huge meat shields?

[Niclole]

Tl;dr No, I don't think they are particularly fun.  The idea of being a duelist and riposting and having a good time as a dexterous fighter just wasn't a reality for me.  More often than not 1 to 2 hits and the Rogue was down even with high con/resolve shield.

 

I tried a retaliate rogue build on Path of the Damned.  By level 8 I had replaced him with a 2 handed Fighter.  2 Handed Fighter was 10x tankier than the Rogue with a shield and all the defensive items I could give him lol.  I don't think it works very well, but you could do it.  Riposte seems like a skill that needed to be a higher likelihood of going off to me. You don't want your rogue getting hit much and with how often Riposte procs you need to get enemies attacking you to put out any level of damage worth noting.  To me its a skill that should have scaling based on the amount of targets hitting you.  If you are engaged 1v1 you should have a higher riposte chance and the more enemies engaging you the lower the proc rate should go.  Fits the theme better for me, but alas Im not sure it could be done or if you could balance it or even if its a good idea. 

Edited February 19, 2017 by Niclole

[Blades of Vanatar]

It works OKish but it's not superpowerful. The problem is that you want to catch grazes in order to trigger retaliation and also riposte. But the rogue's health is so low that - even with fat armor - you have to rest all the time.

Deep Wounds works with retaliation, but it can't be stacked.

I even tried with a 19 Con Dwarven Rogue. Still went down a lot.

[Elric Galad]

It might be better to consider Riposte as a fun traits of a classical rogue (preferrably dual wielding) than a build on its own.

[Boeroer]

What does work quite good is to pile up buffs for deflection and those for defense against disengagement attacks. Those stack. With Fast Runner (+5), Graceful Retreat (+12) and some item like Night Runner or the Cape (+15) you will have +32 against disengagement attacks. Paired with some other deflection buffs you can run around and provoke some grazes and misses while you run towards your target - you don'teven need a shield. This can lead to some Deep Wounds via retaliation and also some riposte while you're not in the thick of it all and die at once.

This is fun but it's still far away from powerful.

To make this work a rogue would need to have higher endurance and especially health. A bit more deflection from the start would also help.

At the moment rogues have starting values that represent chars like thieves or assassins. They are not appropriate for rogues who are more like doorkeepers, bouncers, headhunters and such. This they are not very well suited for soaking up damage or eat attacks frequently.

Main problem is their health. You can take Veteran's Recovery and keep him alive for an encounter - but this resting afte every two encounters because of low health just annoys me.

[indika_tates]

I tried it but I deleted the gameplay. It doesn't matter if you stack insane amounts of deflection on your rogue. The health pool is low even on maxed constitution. And a rogue is not a character that can afford being hit like a fighter or a barbarian. On lower difficulties it can be viable but on POTD you need to rest to the point it becomes a chore. I mean, if you want you can complete a POTD campaign with a retaliation/riposte rogue but you are going to have to rest a lot. More than you want.

 

I usually use Caroc on this role because when I get her the frustrating early stages of this char have passed and at this point you have decent equipment to increase the survability of your rogue. Having also one or two sturdy chars for the first mob waves is useful. If a riposte rogue gets focused or draw too much agro even if you have enough healing the health bar is going to drop quickly.

Edited February 21, 2017 by indika_tates