Does "hit and run" work as strategy?

[Madscientist]

I have just created an assassin rogue build. Very high sigle target damage, but unable to take many hits.

 

Can you have boots of speed, sneak to a group of enemies, kill one of them with backstab, run away and then repeat this?

Of course you need to have enough safe space to run away.

 

Do boots of speed (or any other walking speed modifier) have any effect on your speed while sneaking?

[Raven Darkholme]

I'm pretty sure boots of speed only apply in combat but I could be wrong.

Splitting usually doesn't work if you run into a group of enemies for a bs, but you could use invis I guess, it rather works if you run into the los of only one enemy and attack.

Also there is a couple of encounters that don't end until the fight is finished.

Edited August 19, 2017 by Raven Darkholme

[grausch]

Splitting with Boots of Speed could work if you have sufficient room to around in. You would need to outdistance yourself from the group otherwise the entire group will keep on following. Fast enemies, for instance monks, make such tactics very unlikely to succeed.

[Boeroer]

You will not kill or even one-shot a lot of enemies after the early game before the rest of the crowd reaches you. If you run away frm a victim as a melee char, you will always catch a disengagement attack that will briefly stop you. And since you can't take many hits, that will be your end.

 

I tried several rogue builds for Backstab and the best tactic so far is to wait stealthed in the second row until the enemies engage you front line and then do the Backstab - either with a reach weapon or with a gun. All other approaches that unclude sneaking up on enemies and kill them asap, then flee most of the time screw up. You would need to disable engagement with Smoke Cloud or with a disbling affliction in order to prevent the victim to hit you if you have to flee early. Smoke Ckoud comes pretty late, but I don't know which other things could work. Escape comes to mind, but after your Backstab you will have recovery time. You click your Escape button but will get interrupted and killed before it your recovery finishes. I tried it and it doesn't work too often.

 

So you either raise your defenses for disengagement (Fast Runner, Graceful Retreat, item with bonus against diseng. attacks like Night Runner or that generic cape) or you make yourself sturdy enough to survive a few hits (Veteran's Recovery or whatever). You could even sneak up, do Backstabs and then switch to a hatchet + large shield setup just for fleeing. That might actually work. Switching to that setup will immediately give you higher defenses - even without weapon & shield style.

[Madscientist]

Thanks

 

So a good approach would be that the rogue sneaks behind the enemy group. Than your tank attacks the group and melee enemies run to him. Now the rogue starts to attack casters and ranged enemies from behind. Would that work?

 

Else your rogue has to attack with ranged weapons until the tank has engaged most enemies and the rogue attacks them from behind (flanked) and attacks the tanks target with sneak/death attacks (your group has enough time to apply a second status effect on the enemy). Thie would make backstab completely useless.

 

How is the enemy AI now? Will they attack the party member with the lowest defense or the one that does most damage to them?

If they attack the one with the lowest defense, a tank is useless and they will go after my rogue or my casters. If they attack the one who does most damage, my rogue has a chance to be useful because he attacks one enemy after the other.

 

I have finished the game a few times (on normal or hard, not PotD) and so far I never had a rogue in my party. They are focused on single target damage but most difficult fights have a lot of enemies. I want to use a rogue next time (on hard) but I do not know how to use them. I could simply use a ranged weapon, but I want to have a dual wielding assassin just because I like that style. I had such a char as main char in DA:O, but POE has no aggro mechanic so its harder to make sure that the enemies do not attack me.

[Raven Darkholme]

I think the best build for rogues in this game is to go for disables on crits.

One guy did an ultimate solo run with a rogue and basically permastunned all enemies and combined with rotfinger gloves and deathblows chunked them for BIG damage.

[grausch]

Thanks

 

So a good approach would be that the rogue sneaks behind the enemy group. Than your tank attacks the group and melee enemies run to him. Now the rogue starts to attack casters and ranged enemies from behind. Would that work?

 

If your rogue sneaks behind enemy lines, he would most likely be isolated and not survive long. It could work as an opener if you have high stealth, otherwise you would have to use it in conjunction with Shadowing Beyond, i.e. Shadowing Beyond or stealth to get within 2 metres of your target, Backstab, Shadowing Beyond again to get you out of trouble. Sort of makes it a once per rest ability.

 

@Raven Darkholme mentioned @Wodjee's run where he achieved the Ultimate with a rogue. The Frozen Crown run can be found here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miTjrBLDaQ4. Reviewing his strategies throughout the various Acts will give you a very good idea of how a rogue can be utilised and of course you would need to adapt that to party play.

[Boeroer]

Thanks

 

So a good approach would be that the rogue sneaks behind the enemy group. Than your tank attacks the group and melee enemies run to him. Now the rogue starts to attack casters and ranged enemies from behind. Would that work?

 

 

That's a ton of micro for your everyday encounter, but it might indeed work, you are right.

 

Backsgtab damage stacks with Sneak + Deathblows by the way. If you wait in stealth (or invisibility) until your chosen target has 2 affliction, then you will deal +300% bonus damage - which is really devastating with a gun.

 

I like reach weapons best for backstab. No micro involved when you just stay stealthed until the enemy engages your frontline and you simply attack from stealth. Reach weapons have a decent amount of base damage, you can backstab from he second row - and you get two backstab attacks anyway - if you're dual wiedlung or using a two hander. Sadly there are no annihilating reach weapons. But Tall Grass is nice. 

 

As I said before, the real king of backstab damage is Firebrand (which youcan only use from invisibility, because summoning breaks stealth). Hours of St. Rumbalt is also very nice, but you have to get into melee range and expose yourself. However, the high base damage, the prone on crit and the annihilation and the fact that you can buy it rel. early team up very well with a backstab build. An arquebus is also great, but usually you only get one backstab-attack with it instead of two melee/reach swings.

 

Enemies' AI is diverse. Barbarians use to attack the target with the lowest deflection, others like to attack the lowest DR, others the lowest endurance/health and again others will attack casters first. So one can't say there's a general rule how/whom they attack. Somebody once explained it here in the forums, but I forgot to be honest. 

Edited August 20, 2017 by Boeroer

[Madscientist]

OK, so you say backstab works best with a reach weapon.

 

I want to use a rogue who is dual wielding sabres because they do most damage (full attacks, easier to get zero recovery) and I like that style.

Backstab would be perfect RP wise, but my char needs to survive in order to deal damage.

 

It will take some time until I play POE again (just finished Fallout:NV and started Legent of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel.

Even if I play I will do it on hard with a full group and I play really slow.

 

I will create an "official" build soon and you PotD freaks can tell me if this makes sense.

[Raven Darkholme]

Dual sabres are more of a cipher weapon tbh who not only gets extra soul whip damage but also generates focus faster because of the high base damage.

If you're really into bs you should definitely open with a reach weapon as Boroer stated, after that you can always switch weapons either into sabres or as mentioned above into weapons that inflict disables on crit, which is the rogues most deadly strength because of high acc.

[Boeroer]

You could open combat with a blunderbuss- or pistol-backstab and then switch to dual sabres. You could also deal backstabs with sabres of course, but they don't have higher base damage than the other slow onehanders anymore, only a mere +20% damage bonus (which is +2,7 damage in average). They got nerfed. So Backstab isn't really great with them. Just ok.

 

If you like sabres then it's cool, but they are not the no. 1 one handed dps option anymore because they lost their high base damage, they only do slash damage and the +2.7 from "sharp" doesn't make up for that. Bittercut's excluded of course because it has two damage types and another +20% can be added by Spirit of Decay.

 

The no.1 one handed option would be war hammers now I guess. But I also think that a rogue with dual hammers looks weird.

 

A reach weapon for backstab is convenient (nearly no micro) and effective, too. But it's not superduper overpowered or something.