ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I will be shamelessly copying FuzzyCuddlyBunny copying Cathbald's guide format for this.

From the maker of the best tier list comes the best 1.5.10 Rogue guide for Madness only.

What is Rogue: Rogue is a class from the eponymous metaclass: Rogue. They use knives.

Check out my Madness Roguelike Winner: https://te4.org/characters/220494/tome/04b9bd7a-AuHM-W0W5-beff-dead12e5efe6

Endorsements:









Pros:
+Expose Weakness is broken
+A bajillion crit mult

Cons:
-You're made of an alloy of tissue paper and window glass
-You're super squishy
-Your durability is lacking
-You have very few defenses, especially against ranged damage
-You fold like an origami swan when confonted with any degree of punishment

Races:

Cornac – 5/5: You want 5 category unlocks. Cornac gives you 5 category points. Plus they're fairly aesthetically pleasing
Higher – 5/5: You want Hidden Resources, so this is essentially a prodigy point. That lets you get Tricks of the Trade and save a category point. Plus they're easy on the eyes.
Shalore – 3/5: Sha-Elves are pretty, fast and pretty fast. Their racial invisibility is super overpowered since it has no damage penalty, but it's not enough to compete with the top contenders.
Thalore – 3/5: Tha-Elves have tons of mental save and that's about it. Not having to worry about stuff like Battle Cry is nice, but not quite enough. They're also pretty though, so they're not absolute bottom tier.
Doomelf – 3/5: A step sideways from Sha-Elves. Less fast, more pretty, especially with the demon horns.
Halfling – 2/5: Gives tons of powers when enemies are nearby, but doesn't give accuracy so it isn't that helpful. Plus can't use Prox's Halfling foot, which is just awful.
Dwarf – 2/3: Have you ever seen a dwarf with a knife? Have you ever seen an alien with a knife? I rest my case.
Drem – 2/5: No face lets you make lots of money from the Last Hope Casino, but imo that doesn't make up for being completely blind.
Yeek – 4/4: Yeek is good, open your eyes. Feel the Way flow through you. Ditch that scrying orb, you have no need of it. Come to the warm furry embrace of yeek.
Ogre – 1/5: If you want to use big weapons, then choose ogre. If you want to play rogue, then don't. Rogue and knives are like rancid tree bark and peanut butter: Two great tastes that go great together.
Krog – 0/6: Antimagic is bad
Ghoul – 0/6: Slow, undead, gross-looking. Maybe in 1.6 with Extreme Vomit Skating and lots of track this would be a good choice.
Skeleton – 1/6: With rogue dex, bone armour might actually be useful, but being undead suuucks and playing a race with 40% exp penalty is like flogging your eyes with barbed wire dipped in dragon tears. Their ivory bones are quite elegant though.

TL;DR: Pick a human.

Stats:

STR: You don't really care about physical save thanks to rogue's brew and scoundrel. Pass.
DEX: Nimbleness, swiftness, alacrity, agility. This stat has it all. This is why you're here. Max it ASAP.
MAG: This isn't a shadowblade guide.
WIL: You need at least 50 WIL for Hidden Resources. Also gives extra stamina, which isn't that bad.
CUN: You need this for knives, crits and a bunch of things scale with it for whatever reason.

Class Trees:

Lethality: 1/1/1/1 early, 1/1/1/1 late

Lethality: Lets you only need to focus on two stats and also gives crit mult. The gains start to fall off after one point though.
Expose Weakness: God I hate this talent. First of all, it's a grotesque scaling violation, giving effective accuracy and weapon damage. The respen is also awful but that's just a problem with respen in general. Second of all, you can stack it super high. Get a projection weapon, hidden blades, blade flowery and maybe also flex if you're a human and one use of this will make you a god of death. It gets better above one point, but it won't make a difference even if you're playing on madness.

Blade Blurry: Gives an attack speed boost, which is mostly useless since it doesn't work on expose weakness. The real catch is hitting two adjacent enemies, which really lets you clear out crowds.
Snap: A cooldown reset for your talents, which is really nice. Has the dubious distinction of actually getting worse as it levels, since it dilutes the pool of resettable talents. Also takes a turn. One point for cooldown fodder.

Dirty Fighting: Unlock ASAP, 1/1/1/1 early, 1/1/1/1 late

Dirty Fighting: Lets you ignore stun immunity. That's literally it. Fortunately stun is really good so this is super important. Duration and physical save reduction don't matter, one point wonder.
Backstab: Moderate damage increase and can apply cripple to your attacks. Scaling doesn't round properly, one point.
Blinding Powder: This talent's existence baffles me. One point to get to Twist the Knife.
Twist the Knife: The best thing you have to remove vitality. One point should be enough for most porpoises.

Poisons: 1/1/1/1 early, 1/1/1/1 late

Apply Poison: Lets you apply poison. You hit so many times that you'll always apply it after a round and the damage is negligible. Leave it at one.
Toxic Death: This is an on_kill effect and is thus really awful.
Vile Poisons: Unlocks a bunch of mutually exclusive poisons with talent level, but Numbing is the best one and unlocks at level one, so don't bother putting any more points into it.
Venomous Strike: Worse then useless. Deals nature damage so you don't gain your physical damage bonuses and overwrites your 60% item_nature_slow slows with a wimpy 12% one. You literally only want this for stun fodder.

Stealth: 1/1/1/1 early, 1/1/1/1 late

Stealth: In theory this lets you hide from enemies. In reality you need this for shadowstrike. One point.
Shadowstrike: Three words: Free crits. You get the free crits at level one so don't bother with more points.
Soothing Darkness: Makes rest times somewhat shorter. That's literally it. One point.
Shadow Dance: Gives you more free crits. More levels mean more turns but what's going to survive three turns of autocritting. One point.

Artifice: 1/1/1/1 early, 1/1/1/1 late Unlock right after dirty fighting

This talent tree has an awful gimmick where it adds even more talents to this bloated class. Thus, I'll only list the sub-talents you want

Rogues Brew:
Restores stamina and cures physical effects. Those are nice until you get hidden resources and scoundrel, but you really want this for the fourth talent's effect. One point.

Hidden Blades:
More fuel for the expose weakness bonfire. One point.

Dart Launcher:
Hopefully this and blinding speed will stop enemies from deleting you after you expose weakness them. One point.

Use Master Artificer on rogue's brew and drink it before every combat. One point is enough to stop you from dying before you rush in.

Trapping: 1/1/1/1

Only people who despise life and joy take trapping. You're playing a rogue, so go 1/1/1/1 in it. Use the disarm and antimagic traps.

Stealth: 1/1/1/1 early, 1/1/1/1 late

Stealth: In theory this lets you hide from enemies. In reality you need this for shadowstrike. One point.
Shadowstrike: Three words: Free crits. You get the free crits at level one so don't bother with more points.
Soothing Darkness: Makes rest times somewhat shorter. That's literally it. One point.
Shadow Dance: Gives you more free crits. More levels mean more turns but what's going to survive three turns of autocritting. One point.

Assassination: 1/1/1/1 early, 1/1/1/1 late unlock right after artifice

Coup de Grace: Does %life damage, which is broken. Useful on the off chance anything survives two turns of combat. One point.
Terrorize: Helps you survive after using expose weakness. More radius is useless. One point.
Garrote: Free silence is always nice. Might also get more expose weakness? Not sure. One point.
Marked for Death: Obscene damage scaler, but takes a turn and isn't quite as broken as expose weakness. Still useful with Broken Hourglass though. One point.

Combat Techniques: 1/1/1/1 early, 1/1/1/1 late, unlock after assassination

Rush: Makes you mobile and applies a guaranteed daze. Your primary initiator. One point gives enough range.
Precise Strikes: Gives you crit and accuracy, but at a very high cost. One point from prereqs.
Perfect Strike: Always gets confused with the above, but is way better since it lets you deal with dreads. One point is enough.
Blinding Speed: Gives you an extra turn when you need it most, one point wonder.

Dual Techniques: 1/1/1/1 early, 1/1/1/1 late

Dual Strikes: A stun. One point.
Flurry: Hits a lot of times. Once you have expose weakness running one use of this will murder everything even at one point.
Heartseeker: Bad mobility, but still mobility. One point.
Whirlwind: Trash clearing and some more bad mobility. Implemented in an awful way under the hood, so probably don't use it on an enemy with circle of warding active. One point.

Duelist: 1/1/1/1 early, 1/1/1/1 late

Dual Weapon Mastery: Gives a minor damage increase and sometimes protects you from melee enemies. One point.
Tempo: Helps with stamina, but you have hidden resources so it doesn't really matter. One point for unlocks.
Feint: Hide Behind A Trash Enemy: The Talent. One point gives you everything this does.
Lunge: Damage sucks but disarm is sometimes helpful. Pray you never have to use this. One point.

Throwing Knives: 1/1/1/1 early, 1/1/1/1 late

Throwing Knives: Ever wanted to stab a plant from a safe distance? This is the talent for you! One point is all you need.
Fan of Knives: You're obviously a fan of knives, why else would you play rogue.
Precise Aim: Crits are good, but throwing knives kind of suck for damage. One point.
Quickdraw: Might give expose weakness more power? Almost certainly overkill. One point.

Generic Trees:

The standard spread

Survival: 1/1/1/1
Combat Training: 1/1/1/1/1/1

Mobility: 1/1/1/1 early, 1/1/1/1 late

Disengage: Good for disengaging. That's literally it. One point
Evasion: Instant, gives you a one-third chance to not die. Scales awfully, so leave it at one point.
Tumble: Instant, goes through enemies. Way too expensive before you get hidden resources though. One point.
Trained Reactions: Allows you to hope that you won't die out of autoexplore to an archer. That hope is in vain. One point.

Scoundrel: 1/1/1/1 early, 1/1/1/1 late, unlock with tricks of the trade or wyrm bile(if cornac)

Lacerating Strikes: Between this and blinding speed you might be able to double-turn enemies. One point.
Scoundrel's Strategies: Crit chance reduction isn't much, but the amnesia effect is nice. Duration doesn't really matter, so one point.
Misdirection: Gives protection from physical status effects, which is very powerful. In my experience you don't need more then a 7% chance, so one point is fine.
Fumble: Talent failure is very strong. The big breakpoint is at 2/5, but you're too strapped for generics to put that many in. One point works ok.

Category Points:

You want to go dirty fighting -> artifice -> assassination -> combat techniques -> scoundrel. If you're not cornac then get scoundrel via tricks of the trade.

Inscriptions:

Heal/Movement/Heroism is the ideal spread. Heal is instant, which is crucial for rogue and will usually take you to full with good healmod. Plus it cures sleeps and cripples from enemy rogues. Movement gives stun immunity and heroism gives you a veneer of durability. Between movement and clear mind torques you don't really need a wild infusion.

Prodigies:

Hidden Resources: Essential for all non-highers. If you run out of stamina then you're completely helpless. This makes sure that doesn't happen.
Tricks of the Trade: Essential for all non-cornacs. You NEED scoundrel and no other race has enough cat points to get it without this.
Flexible combat: If you're a human, then take this with your spare prodigy. It'll supercharge your expose weakness to superhuman levels.

Escorts:

Just take stats from them, the actives aren't very good.

Alchemist Potions Quest:

Rush for Invulnerability, grabbing the talent/generic points if you can. Don't drink the Invulnerability Potion, it's too precious.

Tactics:

Rogue's Brew if you have Master Artificer -> Turn on instant buffs -> rush from stealth -> expose weakness -> shadow dance -> sleep dart -> flurry -> coup de grace

Before expose weakness gives you big numbers you should probably stun before expose weakness. If anything survives this combo, then enjoy the time before the moment you die. You want to find a good balance between having enemies for projection and Blade Furry to work on and fighting as few dangerous enemies at a time. How to find that balance is left as an excercise to the reader.

I feel that it should be mentioned that rogues are not very sturdy.

Yeek is always 4/4.