I remember in class discussions in the past Rogue was expected to have a few main perks - high sustained DPS, disrupt casters, a bit of camp splitting ability (sap/vial), and, of course, Stealth for CR, exploration, etc that works on both living and undead and even some see-invis mobs (but not against a few see-stealth mobs). The newer class description for Rogue even described them with this:
Outside of combat, their stealth opens parts of the world that are simply impassable to anyone else. They can scout ahead, slip past dangers, and set up a fight on terms entirely of their own choosing.
But is that really true any more?
I'm talking about the big Stealth (and Sneak) system change to address the complaints of "everyone can just roll a level 1 Rogue and use it purely for CR", of course. After that, Stealth is in some ways worse than other forms of invis, which don't have level checks. And it's not like the change was only for mobs with some huge amount of levels above you or something, just barely red mobs a couple higher than you - mobs you'd often bump into and have to get around (even if you don't intend to fight them) in a level-appropriate dungeon - can possibly see through Stealth now.
I haven't really played Rogue since then and I do know it was tweaked a bit in later patches though.
So my question is, for those that have actually continued to play with Rogue - is Stealth really a big defining perk for Rogues now? Are Rogues still the king of CR and scouting? 'Cause on paper it seems like a Monk would be better by just repeatedly using FD... Am I just making a mountain out of a mole hill, and stuff seeing through Stealth doesn't actually come up that often in practice? Does the "distract" ability make a big difference and allow pretty easy scouting and CR?
Assume I'm bad at actual stealth games, like learning patrol patterns and seeing mob facing and so on (I have poor eye sight so often can't tell from a distance which way an enemy is facing).
Rogue was in my top 3 choices to main before the change to Stealth, but not because I care about having top DPS (that't matter to me as long as it's good enough to fill my role in groups) but because I loved being able to explore and help people with CR. I kept hoping they'd roll back this change or at least just make it a simpler "mobs 10+ levels above you can see you, others can't, so if you stay in level-appropriate dungeons you don't need to be good at stealth games to use this". But now with EA so close I guess that's not happening, yet I'm still tempted to roll Rogue if it's not really as bad in the long run as it seemed like when it first changed.
