I wrote one post previously about ROG but in this one I'll go more in depth on why currently ROG is very underwhelming and lacks identity. Like I mentioned before I play rogue for the class fantasy, not because I expect ROG to be a #1 DPS. As of writing this post I leveled to 33 so I had plenty of time to collect my thoughts, refine them, and form an opinion. Especially after seeing all of the other classes in action at my current level. I will break this down into larger paragraphs for ease of explanation. Additionally I talked to A LOT of ROG players and they either agree with almost everything or literally everything I'm about to list.
Stealth
ROG:
So stealth is supposed to be rogue's bread and butter and the identity of the class. Unfortunately MNM currently suffers from a severe problem where various classes overlap way too much and steal from each other's identities/functions. This is easy to see once you will check class forums of other classes.
This is no different when it comes to stealth. Let's look at ROG's stealth first. We get it from the beginning which doesn't really mean that much. We are severely slowed down in stealth and stealth can break when we approach red con enemies.
RNG:
RNG gets to run in stealth at full speed and even gets to attack while stealthed.
Lvl 7 - Invisibility versus Beasts - Usable on self and party members. Makes target invisible to beasts for 10 min. Can break early.
Lvl 13 - Sneak - Allows RNG to sneak past enemies when behind them.
Lvl 15 -Camouflage - Outdoors stealth usable on self and party members which makes a player invisible to the living for 10 min. Can break early.
So who is the stealth class here ? ROG or RNG ? Not to mention that RNG also has Lull / Calm / Peace abilities for dealing with aggro.
How to fix this:
Remove ROG's Stealth slowdown. It's absolutely ridiculous that other classes can cast a variety of invis buffs and run at full speed but the class which has one single self stealth ability, and whose identity is stealth, is running in stealth at half or lower speed. Other classes are also harder to detect because you need See Invisibility while ROG can be detected just like that. Rogue is supposed to be great at corpse recovery but in my experience mages are even better since they can recover corpses faster thanks to being able to run at full speed.
Party utility
So most classes come with various party tools like buffs / debuffs / aggro control / cc. ROG also has a couple of tools in the form of interrupt / stun abilities but some of them feel very random and don't really play together well or feel rather useless.
Jab - Very nice ability for dealing with spells, definitely a good pick for the hotbar.
Uppercut - Another very nice ability which works as a cancel and can also be used to get behind the enemy for a quick backstab at the same time.
Sap - Very nice tool for split pulling and helping other pullers with dangerous or big pulls. Unfortunately it only works on humanoids therefore the usage is limited therefore I would classify it as average unless you would only fight humanoids.
Blinding Powder - Incredibly niche situational ability which can be used as an additional interrupt but it's quite wonky. Don't recommend, waste of a slot.
Distract - Absolute waste of a slot, won't even elaborate.
And this is where ROG's party utility ends really. You have 2 good abilities, one average ability due to it being conditional, and the rest is rather useless except for incredibly niche situations. ROG gets zero party buffs as well while for example RNG can cast so many different good party buffs including SotW.
How to fix this:
First of all ROG's identity as a mage interrupter/killer is very common among many other games and could be expanded upon.
Why not expand ROG's arsenal by adding more stun options and then expanding ROG's combat to benefit from those stuns ? First of all each stun gives ROG an ability to offset some damage which helps with solo and second of all it gives us a window to dish out a little bit more damage by landing a quick backstab. This means that if ROG had two stuns they could better deal with all sorts of situations including solo.
This could be introduced through for example a stun debuff ability called Paralyze or something similar which would apply a short stun (2 seconds) to the enemy every few seconds (for example every 5 seconds for 20 seconds). Stun procs could be guaranteed or % chance based and if the rogue is quick they could utilize the stuns to get behind enemy's back and land a backstab which increases our DPS without having to mess with any numbers. This could also randomly interrupt enemy's spells if stars align giving ROG a little more party utility without breaking class identity.
Of course this doesn't have to be a ticking stun dot, it can be any other form of additional stun as stun means more backstabs and more interrupts and ROG currently suffers from lack of damage compared to other DPS classes so additional Backstab opportunities would be very welcome.
Stun identity
For me when I think of a rogue I think of a character who is of course sneaky but also one who is nimble, deals critical damage, exploits weaknesses of others, counters enemy hits by dodging and attacking back, and even causes targets to be weakened.
If the stun path would be taken then ROG's arsenal could also be expanded by one additional ability called Exploit Weakness or something of that sort which would deal little damage normally but would deal a lot more damage when the target is stunned which would play well with Uppercut and the Paralyze from above (or any other additional stun ability).
The stun could be applied by other players too. This would make ROG's gameplay more engaging rather than just spamming Stab and Slice repeatedly. Additionally when Stab is on cooldown this ability would then allow us to dish out some extra damage if the target happened to be stunned. This ability could share its cooldown with Slice and it would be a better option than Twin Blades since Slice could continue to proc bleed while on top of that we could do additional conditional damage from stuns and then come back to stacking bleeds with Slice. The gameplay would be a lot more fun and engaging and it would increase ROG's skill ceiling.
Twin Blades paradox
I'm going to use example numbers here from my early levels to demonstrate how useless the design of Twin Blades is currently. It's so bad that I don't even put it on my bar because there are better options. The only good usage for this ability is soloing low level mobs or having an overgeared and/or overleveled party which would kill enemies very fast. In most cases however this is not the case and enemies take quite a while to kill. Because of that using Twin Blades is actually sometimes a damage loss compared to using just Slice and most of the time damage ends up being the same. I'm going to demonstrate this on the image below. For reference by one rotation I mean either using 2x Slice 1x Twin Blades or 3x Slice:
I also have to mention that Slice is probably bugged right now as description states that bleed procs every 6 seconds but when you use Slice for the first time with no prior stacks the bleed procs instantly.
As you can see the conclusion is very simple. Currently Twin Blades is an absolute waste of money and a hotbar slot.
How to fix this:
There are two choices. Either completely scrap Twin Blades in place of a more combo based kit centered around cc and utilizing cc for extra damage, or remove cooldown sharing with Slice to have Twin Blades as an off cooldown ability allowing more uninterrupted stacking of Bleed and higher damage output. There is also a third optional option which would be simply increasing Twin Blades numbers but then you will run into another paradox where Twin Blades will now probably deal more damage than a Backstab which will contradict the class's identity.
Stab damage range problem
So from the very beginning I noticed that Stab damage was incredibly swingy which creates a consistency problem. For a DPS consistency is incredibly important as it defines how useful we are. If you consistently have really horrible RNG you can be a really bad addition to a party. In the case of Stab this is quite severe as the damage difference between low rolls and high rolls can exceed over 100%!!!
Also can we please get rid of the ambush text and do a proper particle and sound effect for it.
I did some testing on a lvl 28 ROG with 2x 7dmg daggers using Stab III. This was tested on corrupted ashiras in Vale of Zintar. For each test I used Stab 100 times.
The first test shows damage values and repetition count for a normal Backstab mid fight (no ambush):
Minimum: 40
Maximum: 91
Average Of All Samples: 70
As we can see the damage swings pretty much all across the range with a few more max damage backstabs but we could very well attribute this to RNG as well.
The situation is similar when it comes to ambush Backstab. We can see that we're dealing double damage but it still swings with a 100+% range:
Minimum: 90
Maximum: 186
Average Of All Samples: 139
It would be great if Stab damage had a tendency to swing into the upper 50% rather than having flat distribution as shown above. This would add more consistency and would help with rogue's lack of damage compared to other DPS classes like for example WIZ who also have nuke abilities which ROG does not. Same goes for CLR proc.
Rain of Steel and Deadly Throw problem
The deep dive talks about ROG's solo and about the addition of Rain of Steel and Deadly Throw. There are a lot of serious problems with these abilities.
Why are we making ROG into yet another ranged class ? There is already ARC and RNG. If I'll want a ranged gameplay I'll just play one of those. ROG should be a melee fighter with cc / combo abilities / counters / positioning / dots / debuffs. I can understand if ROG had some sort of bombs/grenades or could set traps since we will also be able to disarm them. But apart from using throwing knives for pulling I see absolutely no need to expand the class in that direction.
The abilities contradict ROG's kit. ROG has stealth and ambush Backstab. Why should I engage an enemy from range when I should be backstabbing it instead ? I can guess that the vision here was to use the slow poison and then to repeatedly throw daggers but point 1 shows why this is a bad idea due to ROG's identity. The same goes for Deadly Throw. If I'm already in a party setting on the back of the enemy landing my Backstabs why should I then back away to throw a finisher dagger ? Why does ROG not have a melee execute counterpart, or why is it not built into Stab itself since Deep Dive talked about more meaningful button presses ?
The damage of especially Rain of Steel leaves a lot to be desired.
How to fix this:
Apply the fixes from the above points and center the class around melee cc / combo / positioning gameplay as this is what people expect from a rogue class.
Poisons Poisons Poisons
So when I first heard about ROG in M&M I was so happy that ROG had access to poisons. I was already imagining applying poison DoT to enemies and maybe some additional debuffs. To my surprise it turned out that poisons are incredibly lackluster right now and here are the problems:
Poisons deal no DoT. This is an optional feature depending on how the rest of ROG would be adjusted but in my opinion poisons should deal DoT even if small. This would give people that extra edge in fights, it would kickstart a poison economy since people don't care about small debuffs due to being able to buff/debuff themselves.
Poison debuffs are too weak to significantly affect gameplay. I understand that undertuning or overtuning poisons can have a devastating effect but unless poisons are actually worth using in a combat scenario, nobody will bother with them. This means making enemies attacking very slow, making them move very slow, dealing DoT to them, etc.
Poisons are expensive. Depending on how good poisons would be after tweaks this could be a good thing. If poisons would be strong they should be a luxury item rather than a cheap common good because their impact on fights would be severe. Right now though between the cost of vials, rare sac drops, and the amount of training attempts required to level up, poisons are just one huge waste of money.
How to fix this:
If the effect of poisons will be strengthened don't do anything. Poisons should then be a luxury good because their impact would be severe.
If the effect of poisons will remain the same then either increase the sac drop rate or increase the crafting yield of toxins.
In both cases the addition of DoT should be considered.
Pick Pocket and recent loot changes
With the addition of cash items and reduction in coin drops unfortunately Pick Pocket was also severely affected. Currently from lvl 30 enemies I can get very few coppers compared to before. The amounts are so low that it's actually better to not use Pick Pocket and instead commit to faster kills because I'll be able to get more money from money/medallion/item drops.
Additionally Pick Pocket only works on humanoids for some reason despite a much wider variety of enemies being able to drop coins.
A skeleton doesn't have any pockets yet it drops coins anyway so why shouldn't I be able to snatch those coins if it has them ? Same goes for any other non humanoid which drops coins.
How to fix this:
Allow ROG to use Pick Pocket on non humanoids when they have coin drops.
Identity crisis
This is a wider problem which can be seen across other class forums. For example ENC who's supposed to be the mind control freak and a CC machine is worse at his job than let's say BRD or MNK. Or RNG is a master of everything, takes from ROG by being able to Stealth, takes from DRU by being able to cast a variety of great buffs, and takes from ARC by being an archer, and it even has some utility from classes like BRD/ENC. Because of this hybrid classes steal identity of basic classes which doesn't allow the basic classes to fully flourish.
For example ROG will be able to disarm traps but why is ROG not able to set traps too ? Actually one of the first things I wanted to do as a ROG was doing a trap build but to my disappointment it turned out that ROG can't use traps. The same goes for other things like throwing various self crafted bombs or having various melee flourish moves like counter/parry, maybe teleportation behind enemy back, and plenty more. This is a widespread issue which affects many other classes but here I would also like to propose some fun potential abilities for ROG to expand the fantasy:
Trap - Takes a while to set up and makes the enemy immobile for a few seconds. Could also apply a stack of bleed which could play with Slice and Twin Blades. This could be both a great combat utility as well as a tool to save people in combination with SotW from other classes and ROG's sprint which would allow ROG to cut off enemies and lay traps in front of them.
Smoke Bomb (could require a consumable) - Creates a cloud of smoke which acts as line of sight blocker for NPCs. Would be very useful to help a whole party pass through treacherous areas without attracting the attention of monsters. ROG could for example throw this into a corridor with enemies allowing everyone to pass safely.
Flash Grenade (could require a consumable) - Could be an AOE stun bomb. Would play with Backstab and the Exploit Weakness ability described in the Stun identity section. Could be also used to save people from horrible situations.
Expose Weakness / Vulnerability - This one might be controversial but ROG could bring an armor strip / damage vulnerability to a party to be more desired. As long as the debuff would apply everyone or only phys dmg classes would deal more damage for the duration of the debuff.
Blink - Teleport behind the target (and optionally stun it) - Would play well with Backstabs and could be used as an additional escape tool or a gap closing tool for helping people.
Counter - Would work similarly to Gambit with the exception that instead of a cooldown refresh we would deal damage instead.
I'm sure that there are plenty more interesting abilities anyone could think of which would fit the ROG fantasy but these are the main ones I would love to see myself. Some of them I've seen being proposed on this forum and some I thought about myself.
Solo
So solo on ROG is horrible because of the need to land backstabs and lack of survivability tools like heals or the ability to kite effectively.
But if ROG was changed into a class which has more stun options and relies on those stuns to dish out more backstabs and possibly more skills like the Exploit Weakness example or even the Expose Weakness / Vulnerability / Blink from above, this would not only increase survivability without the need to break class identity and playstyle with introduction of ranged abilities since enemies would attack less. It could additionally make our single target kills faster which yet again means better solo experience.
I often look at other classes who solo by tanking with pets or by healing themselves or by using AOE abilities/CC and I ask myself "why am I still here ? Just to suffer ?". More cc and combo options would make gameplay fun and would make solo experience a lot more enjoyable while keeping or even expanding the class identity.
Summary - master of nothing
The thing ROG struggles the most with right now is being a master of nothing and having boring gameplay together with lack of identity. And this doesn't mean that I want ROG to be the #1 DPS but I want it to at least be up there with other DPS classes.
Other classes for example have various nuke abilities while ROG does not. This doesn't mean that I want ROG to have nuke abilities but rather I want ROG to be compensated through interesting skill combinations which combo together like described in above paragraphs. All together they would add up to more damage which would bring ROG's damage up there with other DPS classes, and the gameplay would become a lot more fun and interesting. The skill ceiling would be increased and skill expression would be created.
Other classes also have a ton of various buffs to help them on their journey while ROG gets absolutely nothing beyond a measly poison resistance self buff.
Similarly ROG lacks in the stealth department due to the movement speed slowdown. If ROG was able to move fast like all other classes utilizing invis them ROG would actually be the master of corpse runs and scouting like it should be based on its core identity. And of course I realize that all of the points are listed would require tuning to not make ROG into some machine which can do everything but currently the class is just bad which is perfectly shown by the stats and overwhelmingly negative feedback.
Solo also leaves A LOT to be desired when we will look at the capabilities of other classes to tank with pets / cc / heal / aoe / kite / etc.
In short, love the concept, but currently the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
