Rogues, and how to build them?

[Swish]

So I've got my rogue into the 20s. It's looking serious, like its my new main for the next year or more or something :p

Questions arise though...

Strength is important for a rogue, no disputing that. But is it better for combat to build some DEX in alongside it? Or go for pure STR to hit the cap? I find myself hitting some tasty backstabs but also see a lot of misses during combat.

Thoughts from the pros are appreciated, how would you do it if you leveled a rogue again? Rolled a half elf myself, snubbed the barbarian/halfling options :p

[Brut]

Dex doesn't affect your hit chance methinks, it's just ATK stat.
Affects your rate of getting dual wields / double attacks off, and proc rate.

Iunno if procs are a good thing anyways, you don't want aggro and that's what most of them are going to do. Kunark era there aren't many amazing proc weapons you can get anyway, and most every proc toy am tried out on my rog (had 200ish dex) didn't really go off that consistently to make them worthwhile. Got that HS dooming snare sword with image of easymode snare fear kiting in mind, the proc went off like every 3rd mob at best.

So would personally say aim for cap Str, once 60 and potentially into raiding you can give up on it some since you should always be shaman buffed to hit the cap. You're not a tank so you wont get all that much hp from Sta; think some gear swapping dipped me rogue's stamina by 15 points or so recently, and all I lost from doing so was like 100hp.

Personal opinion: it doesn't really matter, get Str high up, then stack up MR gear!

[Tikker]

I'm not sure about how they've tweaked dex here, but on live, dex doesn't affect proc rate in this era. it's a set proc rate per weapon

your hit percentage will always be around 60%

strength directly affects the damage you deal, so cap that first

fear kiting with a rogue is very viable up into the mid 40's, and probably beyond if you can find the right spot, and dual wield snare weapons

[Yumyums Inmahtumtums]

I'm pretty sure Dex doesn't factor into your hit rate, just into proc rate. I believe, if memory serves me correctly that between 100 Dex and 255 it will only increase the proc rate by around 50%.

In terms of how often you hit for that is determined by your strength. I found I often times missed as a young rogue but then realized for the first 40 levels you were fighting things around 1-5 levels lower than you. This all changes later when that challenge curve really starts heading to the sky and you're hitting things 10-12 levels lower than you.

[liveitup1216]

I think the general consensus for rogue gearing is Str > HP > Resists, where resists may be better than hp if you're raiding or the higher level you get

[Swish]

Excellent, thanks for the responses... will get my STR to 200+ and see how I get on from there :)

[Itap]

How to build a rogue? One word; Ragebringer

[Tikker]

In terms of how often you hit for that is determined by your strength.


no

[Lojik]

is this blue or red?

[Yumyums Inmahtumtums]

no

STR=ATK=hits.

Yes.

[Tikker]

parse it out and come back


hit percentage is pretty much static at 60%

[Cecily]

STR=ATK=hits.

Yes.

No. Str = Atk and max damage. Atk = damage rangeyness. Hits = Weapon skill / offense.

[Swish]

So just keep weapon skills capped with maxed out STR and you'll be doing the most damage possible?

Interesting on the 60% hit chance...I'd love to parse that to be sure.

[Vellaen]

No. Str = Atk and max damage. Atk = damage rangeyness. Hits = Weapon skill / offense.

Don't weapon and Offense skills raise ATK as well?

[Holey]

Don't weapon and Offense skills raise ATK as well?

yes it has, i've seen my attack at 1433, and damn those backstabs hurt :D
should ask trakanon about it. i've hit 150+ dps on it before within 30 seconds :D:D

SO this makes the case
I have a barb with starting out stats in STA
Str gear is really really easy to come by, and by the time you get to end gaming,
Your str should be max with shaman buffs/vog.
I look at my dex and just laugh.
my STA buffed is also maxwed at 60 and raid buffs
i mean your attack should be max with max piercing/offense also.

[Tikker]

Don't weapon and Offense skills raise ATK as well?


yes

but atk just really affects the range of values you can hit for


hit percentage is a static defined value

[Cecily]

So just keep weapon skills capped with maxed out STR and you'll be doing the most damage possible?

Interesting on the 60% hit chance...I'd love to parse that to be sure.

Thats a number he made up, but it's close enough to the 60-70% I tend to get. It's not a static value, AC opposes hit chance so you'll have different odds depending on what you fight.

Lv 60, maxed str = maximum damage potential (ie: 553 max normal BS). ATK simply makes you hit for max more often.

Basically, be 60 with VoG / Avatar -> 255 Str / Goblin Skull Earring / Dance of the Blade / survival buffs. Have knowledge of hit boxes, impeccable resists, semi-decent reflexes, and a tank who doesn't suck. Then you'll do ok.

[Cecily]

Don't weapon and Offense skills raise ATK as well?

They do! Like most stats, they have multiple effects. ATK is an exception.

[Gaffin 3.0]

Every rogue posted in this thread is p bad

[Lojik]

Every rogue posted in this thread is p bad
O THE IRONY

[Tikker]

Thats a number he made up.

uh, no it's not


it came from 10years of playing a rogue in EQ, in one of the top guilds in all of EQ

[Silent]

With normal raid buffs, VoG shaman str(capped 255) no dex buffs other then the dex from vog and primal essence. Just a shrunken gobby earring for +atk buff(no bard songs in this parse).

This gamparse doesn't like to show a neat little statistics so this is all I got from a copy paste of its summary. Basically to break it down
overall is 68%.
Piercing is 68.2%
Backstab is 64.1%.
Slashing 68.1%.....393 mobs killed in total, all planar trash and bosses in one. If it were just planar trash or seb mobs I would probably be near the 70% mark but every rogue knows how those boss fights can go
depending on disc pop duelist for instance miss 2x double backstabs and be SOL or get 2x 700+ with almost no misses and all pierce/slashs for 100+ on average. But personally if its a fight longer then 30 seconds
I prefer Deadeye since with VoG you can time it to get 3 backstabs off guaranteeing 3 good hits on top of the melee damage rape.

-vs- Combined: -- DMG: 282984 --
DPS: 42
Pierce: 125645 --
Backstab: 90009 --
Slash: 66661 --
Non-crit rate: 100% --
Attempts: 7359 --
Hits: 4932 --
Missed: 2345 --
Defended: 82 --
Accuracy: 67.8% -- Avg Hit: 57 -- Max hit: 982 -- DMG to PC: 10463

This takes you from all the kunark dragons/bosses non VP including fear, hate, and sky trash. sky djorns/sisters/bees so essentially its mixed in with all the boss fights. I could pull out logs of 10 of each fight parsing and the variance usually isn't much unless I have a bard in my group with epic proc playing atk pwr songs and such then really only my average hit goes up. I sit around 1397 atk pwr with dance of blade.

[Cecily]

uh, no it's not


it came from 10years of playing a rogue in EQ, in one of the top guilds in all of EQ

Uh, yes it is. Same background.

[JayN]

str>ressists>hp for groups/raid imo

[Cecily]

183+ str to cap with shaman str end game. 115+ sta minimum after that. Get nice weapons, work on a hp set and a resist set.

[Droog007]

Here's what I recall from my <insert number here> years playing a rogue on Live:

Max hits (both autoattack and backstab) is a function of weapon damage and level (assuming maxed skills, mods not gonna be an issue here). E.g. a level 60 rogue can hit a 553 backstab with Ragebringer (or other 15 dmg mh pierce) be his strength at 150 or 255.

ATK will trend you upwards toward that max hit. ATK is a composite stat and pretty difficult to reverse engineer, but not all components are created equal. Str adds ATK at 1:1, but its effects are very small compared to "pure" ATK added by buffs like wolf form or Avatar.

Dex does nothing but increase proc rates, and typically as a rogue in a group or raid scenario... procs are bad, mmkay? Maybe it increases skill-up rate for certain skills, but meh.

In Summary: you want levels, weaponry, and ATK for DPS. Str helps ATK on paper, but in reality it's easy to max and may not actually make that much difference. "Pure" ATK from the worn buff on Ragebringer, goblin ear click, etc. es muy importante. HP and resists keep you alive longer, and as we used to say on live: dead rogues DPS like a paladin. Everything else can suck it.

[Droog007]

I'm looking forward to Loraen leveling up a rogue and applying powers of scientific observation like he did for enchanters and warriors.

I would love to see some methodically analyzed parsing to support or disprove any of what's been said above...

[Droog007]

Just remembered what I came here for...

As stated, I'm fairly certain that DEX has no effect on DW/DA rates, but wanted to see if anyone had any [anecdotal or otherwise] evidence to the contrary.

[Buriedpast]

STR=ATK=hits.

Yes.

Wrong.

Str based atk is not anywhere near the same as raw atk.

Along the lines of 12% as effective from memory.


Cecily is "special" but gets the core concept on your median damage moving to the right with higher atk, but your DI and MA remaining static.

Strength will affect MA obviously, the formula has been common knowledge for donkeys years.

So to sum:
ATK moves median damage to the right
STR increases DI (by default moving median right a small amount)

Atk from str is 12% as effective as raw attack. Roughly 120str = 10atk from Aura of battle for dps increase on a rogue.

[Buriedpast]

Just remembered what I came here for...

As stated, I'm fairly certain that DEX has no effect on DW/DA rates, but wanted to see if anyone had any [anecdotal or otherwise] evidence to the contrary.

No affect.