Rogues...so what is it like anyway

[dusk883]

Played all classes. Never even rolled a Rogue before...

Questions:

1- Can you sneak around without being attacked in say BlackBurrow everywhere at level 10 if you wanted to?

2- After the initial backstab, if you're soloing you can still backstab? Have to somehow get behind the npc cone?

3- When is Sneak effective? Can a level 20 sneak around in a 40 dungeon?

4- Is the "fun" of being a rogue to Sneak and Backstab? Surely there's more?

[Ektar]

I've never played a rogue but I like hearing myself talk.

to answer 2 (or an answer), a barb can by slamming and quickly twirling around back to backstab.

[dusk883]

SMAAART!!

Never thought of that

[dusk883]

I think we are mistaken, some 18 rogue said SLAM and BS are on same line and unclickable when you click the other, same cooldown basically.

DURN

[Nubben]

1/3. You can move freely anywhere that mobs don't see invis. If they can, you have to avoid their line of sight but experienced rogues can find their way past just about anything.

2. Against caster mobs you can wait for them to cast a spell and then quickly strafe behind them and land a backstab. Against other mobs you can fear them using Instill Doubt (Intimidation?). This works much better if they are snared first using a weapon proc. Still, soloing as a rogue sucks unless you have great gear and even still really wouldn't be worth it.

This is all based on my experience playing a rogue main on live from 1999-2006, I haven't played mine much on here yet even though I want it to be my main. It's just too painful to get a rogue started without a little bit of gear so I'm trying to level another class first (although I find most of my other characters boring)

[Pyrocat]

What Nubben said. You don't want to fight caster mobs because they will rape you unless you resist everything, but that's pretty much the only time you'll be getting more than 1 backstab in per fight soloing. Intimidation will help but it doesn't start becoming reliable until the upwards of 200 skill level. You used to be able to "side stab" every once in a while but I believe the recent patch fixed that. TL;DR you should never solo after level 15 or so, more often than not you'll die. You can manage lightblues SOMETIMES if you're well geared, and you should only be doing it in you're actively in a popular zone LFG while waiting for a group.

1/3 you want to sneak AND hide, always always always. There are very few mobs in the game that can see through hide, and zero mobs in the game that can see through sneak (if you are behind the mob).

The mobs that can see through hide off the top of my head:
Gods and dragons
Some mobs in plane of hate
Bats in Solusek B
Fire giants in Solusek B
... that's it?

4. It's mostly the ability to walk around crazy dungeons with impunity. And the ability to do CRAZY DPS at high levels and with good gear. If you enjoy seeing your combat text scroll by because you're attacking extremely fast and doing a ton of damage, a rogue is the life for you.

[Slave]

Isn't rogue backstab still totally crushed from a patch like 2 months ago?

[greatdane]

1- Can you sneak around without being attacked in say BlackBurrow everywhere at level 10 if you wanted to?

Yep. Activating sneak and hide at the same time essentially makes you invisible (including to undead) and you won't be detected unless a mob sees invis, or in certain high-level areas where some mob types can detect hidden. I'm pretty sure nothing sees invis in Blackburrow, so you should be completely safe there.

2- After the initial backstab, if you're soloing you can still backstab? Have to somehow get behind the npc cone?

I'm uncertain if this server's mechanics are different, but it shouldn't really be possible. I seem to remember that some rogues were occasionally able to get in a backstab by sort of jumping through the mob and spinning around mid-air, but it wasn't very reliable. If the mob is a caster, you can circle around it and backstab while it's castnig, but you'll never want to solo a caster mob as a rogue. As a general rule, you can't backstab a mob that's hitting you. You'll still get a free single main-hand attack by hitting backstab against a mob that's facing you, so it's worth doing if you can't get to its back.

3- When is Sneak effective? Can a level 20 sneak around in a 40 dungeon?

Your sneak skill's level only determines the chance of succesfully activating sneak, and once it's past 100, it pretty much doesn't fail. A level 5 rogue's succesful sneak is as effective as a level 50's. As soon as you have both sneak and hide, you're able to safely explore any area where the mobs don't see invis or hidden.

4- Is the "fun" of being a rogue to Sneak and Backstab? Surely there's more?

As with classes like cleric and warrior, most of those who enjoy rogue do so because they enjoy the feeling of being the best at something. There is a bit of skill to the class, but it's still a pretty simple one. Some people just like doing really high DPS, fine-tuning and optimizing the damage output of the class that has the highest potential for it, and having the relatively unique ability to stealth properly. If you tend to enjoy classes with lots of options and different strategies, you might be better off with something like a bard, shaman, enchanter or a hybrid. If you want to play a pure melee DPS but think the rogue class is too primitive for you, try monk.

[Hasbinbad]

Stamina.

[Snaggles]

Played all classes. Never even rolled a Rogue before...

Questions:

1- Can you sneak around without being attacked in say BlackBurrow everywhere at level 10 if you wanted to?

2- After the initial backstab, if you're soloing you can still backstab? Have to somehow get behind the npc cone?

3- When is Sneak effective? Can a level 20 sneak around in a 40 dungeon?

4- Is the "fun" of being a rogue to Sneak and Backstab? Surely there's more?

1. They made sneak significantly better at one point. Pretty sure it's been changed and is equiv to invis and invis to undead. I recall even being able to sneak past some mobs that invis didn't work on (Kobolds in Sol B, etc). Basically it's great. Sneak also allows you indiff faction so you can sell to vendors who normally wouldn't deal with you. It also scales up as you level so by 60 it's normal run speed (but walk speed for most your life).

2. You can pretty much assume backstab on the first hit (if it doesn't miss) and casting mobs half the time if you're really quick. After that it just counts as a normal strike so solo rogues (lol) mash the Hell out of it. Then they pray and watch both health bars. :p

3. Depends on the mobs but typically yea. Not uncommon for lowbies to sneak through guk and get the Mask of Deception.

4. They are "fun" in the same way that it's "nice" to have a good attorney or accountant. Extremely beneficial to a team and the bottom line but quite single-purpose.

Doing a ton of damage with spurt triple digit numbers is a blast. Easy aggro-dump (no cast time) is great. Hide/Sneak really is easy mode for many things in life. The various illusion masks are fun. The epic is easy to attain when released and frickin unbelievable. The stats and haste in one slot makes the epic very difficult to off-hand which means 95% of rogues will be total badasses once implemented. My SK epic was a nice sword but 5 times harder and more rare; my rogue epic was a game-changer.

Summary: The great thing about a rogue is you're a great addition to any guild or grind group. As DPS if you are getting outdone it's due to extreme gaps in equipment. You can get to almost any group and some raids by sneaking through a zone. Getting your corpse back is also easy. Generally you look wicked and have an aura of mystery.

The bad thing is you're basically a single purpose tool of destruction. The world's best wood chisel. Just don't expect it to come in handy for much else.

[SyanideGas]

My main is a rogue but to answer your question,they aren't all too great at soloing they are very group dependent.You can sneak around whatever level dungeon you want as long as you're sneaking and you got hide on,I made a mistake and didn't train that in the earlier levels lol.

[Dravingar]

The mobs that can see through hide off the top of my head:
Gods and dragons
Some mobs in plane of hate
Bats in Solusek B
Fire giants in Solusek B
... that's it?

The Elementals near king room in Lguk see invis too.

Also, Rogues are nice to level up/play cause you can usually play black out drunk and no one even notices, plus SBD/Intimidation/locustlure/bandages(or fungi if nicely geared) means you can solo blues rather easily.