Rogue Deep Dive discussion

JohnNS

https://monstersandmemories.com/class-rogue

thundermaul

I love the rework, thank you

Baros

Simple question I don't really see anywhere. What stats should rogues be focused on? Dex/Agi? Str for damage or is damage based on Dex or Agi or is it based on the weapon you decide to use? Where do I find all of this information? Thanks!

Leum

Baros Str and Dex are good to concentrate on. Dex helps you land hits and Str improves the chance
of doing max damage.

Baros

Offhand weapons. Stick with daggers? Go with low delay, higher base damage, best ratio damage? Put more weight into stats or base damage/ratio/proc?

Leum

Baros I would say Ratio above all esle but we don't have hard numbers yet due to not being able to parce ourselves. I hope this changes when we are paying for the game.

Cornmuffin

Baros doesn’t need to be a dagger offhand.

Best ratio.

That being said, if a weapon had a .1 lower ratio but have +100 str, then go with that.

Same with the proc. If it’s a high impact proc. It’ll outweigh some ratio difference.

Ultimately it’ll be up to you to value the differences

jdbertsch

Long time rogue player, so i will be brief.

Backstab damage/stealth backstab damage just too low. the variation is all over the place and at higher levels you just dont impact TTK at any meaningful rate.

Rain of steel: This ability is complete junk now. it does on average 90-100 damage (80/80/90 damage with fury.) who gives a crap> its junk, and its also UBER expensive to buy steel throwing daggers. seriously?

Poisons - take forever to skill up, take forever to farm matts.. i would never want to spend my time farming matts when i can't also level at the same time. no one grinds snakes, so why level this up? grimped. In addition - travel with shaman and this ability is just... useless. seriously, even at late game, rocking these potions have no impact to game.

Rogue just does not measure up and i would never main a rogue in this game. Devs, i know you have done a lot of work on this class, but i can't for the life of me understand why there is fear to give true DPS to a class that ONLY brings dps. A tank at a higher level is double hitting for about 200 a hit, (so 400 a double hit) and hitting with slam and shadowstrike for a good amount. rogue just does not contribute to any meaningful dps increase.

I am sorry, but this class bring nothing but mediocre damage, good explorability with stealth, but that is about all. I would never main a class that just gives very little to a group other than 10% more damage or contribution to TTK? Devs -- a comparison at end game against other dps classes, with similar gear, does not represent the entire level up cycle. this class is just not impactful, and most of the statics that are forming for EA are not looking for a rogue to fill in the gaps... why use a rogue, when you can have another healer, buffs, control, etc. rogue with 10% more damage than other classes is just.... a doll you bring along to look pretty. Optimal groups wont look for a rogue, so you are left with pugs, and that will jsut be random you''re entire level up career.

Rogue is just... a formula - +10% damage applied to TTK. -Nothing more. you can't build a party around a rogue, and if you have an extra slot and need to fill it, rogue would be LAST on my list.

Brettanomyces

jdbertsch
Agreed with this summation. I also don't understand the fact that most every other class gets quite a bit of utility, the only real thing we get is DPS so please let it fly!

I still want to chase bigger backstabs and backstab crits. Clerics get that awesome roulette of proc damage, I want that with backstabs! Just massive hits periodically

I haven't had the chance to log in since the SHM/INQ patch, but the shadow nerf to throwing dagger damage when it switched from range slot to ammo was quite damaging to the limited ability we had to solo.

Brettanomyces

Re: poisons. Farming and leaving up aside, the use implementation is great. Having two types of poisons on, and being able to add a slow if it's missing from your group is nice. Or being able to snare and not having monsters flee. However, the spell casting slow gets the most use from me because normally mobs are slowes better by someone else or snared by someone else. And the cast slow is pretty great as it let's you land interrupts a bit easier.

Otherwise, more poison depth is needed and it's not enough utility to compensate for the lack of more DPS.

I truly believe just having the ability to land a monstrous backstab crit would ease a lot of our class tension. Let us play the RNG dice game just a little bit more and chase huge numbers.

That and throwing daggers not being wet noodles.

Aisthetikos

The more I play the rogue, the more I find the stealth to be very punishing.

Want to group with people in Vale of Zintar? Or get stuck in Black Tide Bay because one of the paths forces your to 22+ mobs after farming a lvl 12 named? Its nearly impossible or at the lest very tedious to get around things like this.

The stealth has the worst con against reds and a have the movement speed punishment. Was it really such a problem to have no con range? I suppose I understand it's a bit sill for a lvl one rogue to be able to walk past a 60, but as it is right now, I am lucky to make it by +5.

On the other hand... so many other classes have access to an invisibility variation and some a see invis. Melee already has a big lack of mobility tax without gate.

Sure comparison is the thief of joy, and in this case it's driving me to consider a different class with a more wholistic exploration/travel balance.

Brettanomyces

Aisthetikos ya I agree. I gave the stealth changes an honest shot, really tried to get my head around the whole stealth changes being for more engaging gameplay, but it's really done the opposite for me. It's completely discouraged me from wanting to stealth anywhere in a dungeon and I certainly don't like doing corpse pulls anymore, at I'm not trying to add my body to the pile.

The #1 reason I loved rogue was the stealth. Exploring was fantastic. And frankly the pure ease of coming and going to a camp in a dungeon with relative ease was worth all the rogue downsides. Being able to get to a dungeon zone line, pop in, find a PUG and get to the camp without disrupting the group flow was worth it. Then I could just a easily leave when life does at it inevitably does and gets in the way.

The stealth changes still hurt. Combined with the still lackluster feeling backstabs, the poison implementation feeling thin, and throwing daggers taking a wild nerf (I was doing 25ish with copper daggers. Now I do 5-8 a hit.) I'm just feeling like rogues got basically nothing other than marginally better white damage DPS.

Brettanomyces

If we've given up all utility, what little utility we have should be amazing (stealth) and it doesn't feel that way anymore. Additionally, if our whole thing is DPS, then give us the DPS chunking we crave.

I don't think it's the case, but there are times I wonder if the whole reason we don't have a more impactful backstab is because of PvP. Really hope that's not the case, but I can see how rogue skills that feel great in PvE (stealth, backstab crits, good throwing dagger damage) become busted in PvP.

Leum

They nerfed the throwing daaggers hahaha. I was only really gonna use em for "pulling" anyway. I am still holding out hope for the light of day shining on any DPS problems during class balancing. If things are broken in PvP then just change the ruleset for those servers.

Brettanomyces

Leum
The daggers were low key great for soloing up to about 30 or so, but not so much anymore. They're pretty gutted at this point and feel terrible to use, which is weird considering the new skills for them

Brettanomyces

Another thing that is disappointing is the uppercut stun being only 3 second. Clearly it's a way to prevent us from going stealth for 3+ seconds to get off an ambushed backstab but to not even give us the choice is a bit of a bummer. It's made soloing nearly impossible.

At level 22 I can barely take down a green cultist outside AC and that's in part because I can barely use my main class defining skill in a solo battle. Attack, move, reposition, backstab, runaway and dagger, repeat. That's all gone now in the rework and while I don't love soloing as a rogue, now no option exists at all.

Rondies

Finally played a Rogue to mid-teens after the rework, and everything in the thread rings true even at this low level. I love the idea of Rogue and really enjoy the gameplay of it. I really want to main one at EA. However, there is nothing a Rogues bring to the group that another class can't already do, and do better.

I know there are talks about more utility around traps, picking locks, puzzles, etc to give Rogues something unique to add to the party. But that utility is very specific to those spots in the game. If Rogue is supposed to be THE melee DPS, make it so. The update felt far too cautionary for Rogues, yet Clerics still have a proc that can hit for 75+ at L1?

Poisons are a fun idea, and potentially offer a lot of utility to the Rogue. In the current form they are all but useless(due to effect, difficulty to obtain, low effect time). IMO they need a lot more poisons to adjust to situations, and poisons need to be more far more accessible.
Backstab; this should be amazing when it lands. Sometimes it feels pretty good, but then you have to make a choice of being stealth for 3s doing no damage to maybe get a big hit. You end up feeling penalized for being in active combat, instead of it being a useful tool in the kit. I'm not sure what the answer is for it, but it should offer far more than it does. It needs higher and consistent damage at minimum. Maybe an added effect on hit as well? Or the ability to have a "targeting backstab" for a unique effect type only Rogue can do?
Stealth is so much fun as a Rogue, but I use it to get corpses and prep a backstab, rarely to sap. It's not the most useful invis in the game either, casters win again.

The general vibe I get from classes is that caster = major power and utility, pure melee = meh overall.

/soapbox end

Love the game and I look forward to all the changes and tuning to come over the years!

Brettanomyces

Rondies nailed it.