ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Suggestion: Give Slings tree (unlocked) and Archery Powess tree (locked) to Rogue.

Rogues do need some buff. Real time statistic show how hard the life of being a rogue.

The data above shows that rogue's life is significantly harder then other starter classes.

Why rogue's life is so hard?
1. Stealth is not reliable, due its mechanism, monsterd will always have a chance discover you when you are doing melee attack. And even the monsters haven't see you, the random attacks are still dangerous. You better don't rely stealth for fleing, it is only good for the first hit.

2. Poison and Bleed damage have alot reistance issue, especially those who occupied a major part of the top killer list -- Undeads.

3. Traps are hard to use. Traps probably are the best talents of rogues, but they are not stright forward. They need high level tactical capability. Another important issue is that traps are conflict with Posion and Dual Wield trees, because traps require you set up trap and step back while melee attack require you approach target.

Why Slings is good?
1. Perfect stat fitness. Slings require dex and cun, and dex and cun are Rogues' main stat.

2. Perfect cooperation with Stealth and Traps. Stay away from enemy will make Stealth more reliable, at least it is easier for you to restealth. Traps with ranged attack are just perfect conbination, set up trap, shot, and flee away.

3. Game need more sling users. Archers are currently the only class who use sling while half of them actually go use Bows. So we need more Sling users.

4. Game already have a slinger rogue. The whateverhisnameis halfling skeleton rogue in the Dreadfall. So let us players can do that too.

Further buff
1. Make poison works with ranged weapons. Poisoned arrow/ammo is not counterintuitive.

Those statistics can be a bit misleading-Rogue has gotten buffed a bit in recent versions and most of that list has not(Cursed has been all over the place in its history). But I agree with the idea.

When I made my Rogue tweaks ideas, I added in Scoundrel in the addon, but also had the Slings category unlocked. The locked Archery utility tree didn't occur to me, but it seems harmless-more playstyles is always fun. And Slings both are underutilized-only some builds of Archers use them, and some builds of Bulwarks-and fitting for both theme and gameplay.

The main problem, in my opinion, is traps. While it's a really fun tree to use, it's not very good and it's very tough to use; almost useless against ranged classes. Plus they don't do much damage, and they can't crit. The traps tree could use some improvements, and it would be fun to be able to discover a few more traps in the world too. There's been some discussion about it here: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=37128

While giving them slings would be fun, I'm not convinced it's thematic enough. Would a Rogue really use a sling? Maybe...could be a good long-range weapon, but not very silent. I feel like bows make more sense for rogues, but the stats don't match up well. Unless lethality could be changed to affect bows too(replace strength with cunning).

I made a generic tree a while back that would make Sling/dagger builds more attractive to some melee classes. After I get Stoic to where I like it, I may go back, tidy up all the crap I overloaded unnecessarily, and kick it out the door.

Slings are easy to conceal and you can pick ammo for them just lying on the ground, so roleplay-wise slings are indeed more fitting.
On the other hand, what about poisons? Poisoning arrows is natural and interesting, but slings...

Why not just go full bore on the assassin route of things? Tiny Hand(pocket)-crossbows. tiny bolts for them in a quiver easily hung on a belt. Could even treat them as a DoT ranged weapon using the 'bolts' (needles? Darts?) as a source of bleed/poison damage, if not as a direct damage ranged weapon.

Plus, Maj'Eyal needs more crossbows.

I'd like some bucklers.

What is difference between rogue using sling and archer?

For thematics, look at the classic Halfling type Rogue.

For the most part, it's not terribly unusual for them to have knives and slings. Whereas, having bows for a classic Rogue or Thief type is mostly limited to D&D as far as I'm aware of, or Robin Hood(which is sorta a weird subset of rogues that doesn't actually do much sneaky stuff and would fit closer to Rangers in most cliche setups).

There's a reasonable argument.

The more important thing is the gameplay difference-Slings run off Dexterity and Cunning, and can be wielded with an offhanded weapon too.

Out of interest can you flurry with sling & dagger. 3 with the fist, 3 with the dagger?

I would love to see throwing knives added to the rogue arsenal. And hopefully compatible with the poisons.

I'd rather see a niche weapon see more use, like Slings, than add yet another niche weapon, like Slings, that only one or two classes sometimes use.

Maybe they could throw the already existing daggers? A ranged attack that disarms you for one turn, maybe?

Although giving them more skills to use with slings would be simpler. I still prefer bows because of poison arrows, though. That could be fun.

An interesting point here is that both sides(those that think bows are more thematic, and those that think slings are) can probably be pleased here.

Just make the utility archery unlocked as well. This makes the sling game a bit better on base, but otherwise there's no real negative, and with proper 1.0 or 1.1 category rankings, there's no fears of a Rogue supplanting an Archer anyways.

(not that there really was one with just those two categories anyhow.)

A couple tweaks could make slings more worthwhile for rogues without adding any archery trees:

(1) trigger one of your rogue traps by firing a shot at the trap
and
(2) apply a poison

Rogues don't need sling mastery for slings to be an awesome part of their arsenal. I had a slinging rogue back in b31, and stood toe to toe with Atamathon and destroyed it convincingly. Rogues have been buffed since then (as has Atamathon, and there weren't pouches for ammo yet), and I think giving rogues standard sling and archery trees would detract from their unique playing style too much.

Rogues are able to fight from afar if they choose, because talents such as Nimble Movements, Disengage, and Stealth actually do provide a lot of mobility (and teleport runes and movement infusions can always add more). Being able to set traps from afar and attack enemies as they chase after you (or wander because they can't see you, or get knocked back from the Catapult trap or Heave) is a huge advantage. Attacking with a sling doesn't need to do a lot of damage to be effective. Since reloading is now a factor, I fully support allowing ranged attacks to apply a poison. Sure, some enemies are immune to poison, and it takes 10 turns for the poison to do all of its damage, but, wow, applying a poison debuff from afar would be sweet.

As for traps... well, I don't understand why it comes up that traps aren't very good. Traps are awesome! Being able to, for example, set off an Explosion Trap or Poison Gas trap by hitting it with a shot would make 'em even better. I recently played a trapping and ranged rogue that didn't invest in defense at all (so I was encouraged to kill things from afar). I think I killed all but maybe two bosses in the west using primarily traps, and some ranged attacks were often thrown in there too.

Final thought: instead of giving rogues archery trees, what about giving archers the Traps tree (locked)?