Tips for a Rogue

[budswell]

Hi everybody
Am playing my first proper Rogue (online profile is "behind" as usual for me)
http://te4.org/characters/1471/tome/d7c ... 25900d6212
Generally I do struggle to deal out damage, one good flurry and thats about it (a long cooldown). Some limited success with traps. Admitedly I have been trying things so there is no real focus in my skill development, but that hasn't really affected my other chars to much.

The minatour took ages. Led him through a few traps, flurry him, fight until out of heath, then teleport away, recover stamina and repeat and repeat and .... Eventually got there and was Kind of fun. But would have spend about 5 minutes after the rest of the entire level was cleared out. Luckily the labrynth gave me plenty of time before he got to me again.

But now I'm fighting the fella under the old forest guarding my castle. He has a good regen rune so I'm pretty much screwed. Run out of stamina, start scum, then try again. I got him under 30% once but thats it. I guess a well timed lucky combo of Flurry, Dirty Fighting, and Dual strike will work if I get luck and the stun disables his Regen. But its looking like I'll just have to come back later when I have some better daggers.

Also in the old forest I came up against a Wyrm and two Dragons near the entrance. Basically I would have had no hope hear withoug stair scumming.

So basically are there some fundamental tactics I'm missing or errors I've made with my rogue? I Maxed stealth but with my low Cunning its still not that effective, and anyway I want to kill things not sneak past them. I am a compulsive level clearer-outerer so I'm hoping thats still possible for a rogue. I guess some Hidden strike and the chance to stay in stealth (whatever that skill is called) will help when I'm higher level.

[Tom]

I think I have found a good way for for this character.
I have played 95% of my games as rogue.

First I max dual weapon 5/5. (class)
Then I bring up dual strike and flurry to 3/5.
Then Precision to 1/5.

At lvl 10 I open up the poison tree. This is a new experience I made last week, and it was extremely positive.
Put in at least 2 in Vile poison and autocoat 2 talents. That means you always have two activated poisons to the daggers.
Then when time comes, put in a few points in Venomous Strike, which is a VERY good talent.
Damage made with Venomous Strike is very very good besides Flurry.

Generic I try to max knife skill.
Accuracy seems for me to work splendid at only 3/10 so I raise this talent 2 steps and hope for a warrior escort for the third step.

At around lvl 12 or something I raise stealth tree.
It is very useful to sneak around so stealth at lvl 5/5 and Shadowstrike will improve a lot.
Also 5/5 Unseen Action is a very uselful thing, but this is later.

If you use stealth you must have either the dark vial, or Hightened Senses.
HS is very good anyway so I invest 2 point here (generic) or are lucky to help a rogue escort.

When I attack something big I try to:
One step before I activate a regenerate infusion.
Then first hit is Dual Strike in hope for a stun.
Second hit is Flurry.
Now he should have a poison or two from your poisons and Venomous Strike should do the rest.
This is Bosses I talk about as normal monster do die from Flurry.

A VERY important item for this type of character is a slime-covered dagger.
Dump STAR or MOON for one of theese.
Dump violet good daggers for a green iron slime dagger.
Slowness is extremely important and slime slows them down.

There are a lot of cool ways to improve and test with a rogue character.
This is I hope a little help on the way.
Might be far from most effective, but it is good enough and a very fun way to play a rogue.

Tom

[budswell]

Thanks for the tips. Sounds like I should have put more into fighting early on before stealth/traps. Live and learn.
I don't have the poison tree. A previous character unlocked it but the unlock has been lost somewhere along the way. This character has not found the assassin lord yet, will wait and see.

[Charlatan73]

hey the poison lore states that you can find some additional poisons in the world. are there any that you have found?

[bricks]

hey the poison lore states that you can find some additional poisons in the world. are there any that you have found?

Quick perusal of the code suggests there are no poisons that can be discovered; only the original five.

[tiger_eye]

My latest rogue beat the weirdling beast guarding the fortress primarily with traps and stunning (don't copy what this rogue did, though--it's a weird build ). 5/5 Trap Mastery can do some serious damage. I typically stunned the weirdling beast either right after the Providence effect was over, or right when it started to regenerate (in order to reduce the amount healed).

Tom makes many good points, and I don't disagree with him. Investing in 5/5 Dual Weapon Training is great, and slime daggers are awesome. However, there are many ways to play and build a rogue. So, a few more pointers:

Generic Points

• 10/10 Knife mastery is unnecessary. 4/10 is "good enough", and you can add more above that if you want as you're able. I would invest 10/10 in Combat Accuracy far before investing 10/10 in Knife Mastery.
  You'd probably be well off if you invested 5/5 in the racial talent Unshackled, and more in Wrath Of The Woods if you invest seriously in Wil.
  "Technique / Field Control" is a great generic tree to unlock. Both Disengage and Heave work well with traps and stealth. Track can be a (preventative) lifesaver. Slow Motion is an awesome talent, but you probably won't have the stamina to spare if you're not investing in Wil.

Class point distribution largely depends on playing style.

Class Points

• 5/5 Dual Weapon Defense is a must (eventually) for me
  Don't overlook the Dirty Fighting talent. The stun duration is longer than that of Dual Strike, and the stamina cost is less. This checks against the enemy's physical resist (like Dual Strike), and increasing Dex and accuracy will improve your chances. Unlike Dual Strike, only one of your weapons (not just the offhand weapon) needs to hit.
  If you intend to use traps (and why wouldn't you ?), you should eventually have Trap Launcher at 2/5 (at least).

Other than that, have fun and kick ass! Rogues are one of my favorite classes, and they typically become really powerful sometime between clvl 30 and 40.

[Canderel]

Yeah, 1 point in dirty fighting and 1 or 2 in backstab can up your damage a lot as your multi crit your flurry.

With 2 iron daggers I was doing more than 100 damage (though obviously not always) at lvl 6.

Other than that... when you're even a little low pop your regen infusion. Get any decent dagger early... Early on don't be shy to wield a decent long sword/mace/waraxe etc. in your main hand. If it's got an ego, take it, it serves you better than the stupid iron dagger.

Your early weapons is really what makes you able to do decent damage.

Also, that 1 trap is not too bad damage for early on.

[budswell]

Thanks for the tips. I've given up on the weirding beast for the moment. Its got both a healing and regen infusions so is a bit tough for me at the moment. I'll come back with better daggers and talents. Im enjoying traps, the catapult trap is great, fling em down a corridor and then lay explosion and poison as they come back for another catapult.

I'm contemplating anti magic? Good or bad idea for a rogue? No teleport would be scary, I don't have a lot of health and movement is no good when surrounded...

[greycat]

Rogues don't particularly need more challenges added to their lives, so personally I'd skip Antimagic. Although protection from spellcasters/breathers is certainly something to be desired, since they're the biggest threat to a Rogue (you can't dodge their spells/breaths with Defense).

[tiger_eye]

Antimagic can be a difficult--but rewarding--path for a rogue. There have been two rogue winners, and only one on roguelike difficulty: Th'vee, who was antimagic.

All antimagic talents are potentially useful. Resolve is especially useful, imho, because of the magical damage reduction and the high stamina replenishment. With Resolve, a rogue shouldn't have any stamina issues. Still, if you choose to go antimagic, you should probably invest some stat points into Wil.

You're absolutely correct about mobility being an issue, though. Proper planning to keep from getting surrounded and overwhelmed is essential, which is also why Track and other field control talents are great talents to have. Th'vee didn't have those, unfortunately, and relied primarily on a movement infusion and stealth, which didn't always work. Heh, there were a few times when I had to close my eyes, use the Phase Door effect from the Serpentine Cloak, and hope for the best or else suffer the worst

So, if you have an excessively careful playing style, antimagic could be a good route to go. If you're not that careful, you'd probably be better off not going antimagic.

[bricks]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who has problems with mobility. :/ I like stealth, but haven't invested in it enough to use it as a pseudo-mobility skill. Perhaps the buffed Shadowblades in the next version will be more to my taste.

[TheRani]

My rogues usually go with a good movement infusion and a teleport rune (or a necklace of teleportation).

Early on, the Lure is helpful for distracting casters and archers (and pretty much anything, really) while you move in closer. It's rather less helpful later when it starts getting one-shotted.

Also, the Exploding Lure trick can be fun at low levels, before you get Trap Launcher. If there's a horde of enemies coming, just put a Lure down, put an explosion trap underneath it, and then walk away.

[Miruko]

personally i found my own way to burst damage by using the tree wich allows more crits on stunned people, so stun+flurry=nearly 3 critical hits wich are huge on a single target. Personally i don't use traps a lot, but is a matter of flavors, i like focusing on damage and crit damage.

[Grey]

I agree on the stun + crit combo. There are two long duration stun attacks, and with crit damage increased you can lay a lot of damage quickly on mobs with even regular attacks on stunned enemies.

Traps can be a bit of a distraction. The main problem I find is they sap so much stamina, which is better saved up for a good Flurry. If you want to use traps a lot then pick up some stamina regen gear.

[edge2054]

Here's my rogue build. Was pretty fun.

http://te4.org/characters/81/tome/41397 ... 1cc000edf0

Unlike tiger_eye (who actually gave me a lot of advice while I was playing this character) I'm not a fan of combat accuracy. I tend to pick up Accuracy on gear though to compensate. The points you see in it where probably some of the last generics I invested. Knife Mastery on the other hand I mainly maxed out because of it's great synergy with dual weapon training and venomous strike.

At this point in the game I was able to off-hand crit for 5k with venomous strikes


Also note that I relied heavily on stealth to pick and choose my fights but didn't invest in the tree beyond 5 points in stealth and 1 point in Shadow Strike and Hide in Plain Sight. I'm sure Unseen Actions could be great but it's really not needed to take advantage of stealth. I did however make heavy use of Hide in Plain Sight, movement infusions (to get far enough away to restealth if I needed too), and disengage. Sort of a tedious play style and probably not for anyone that wants to mindlessly blaze through monsters but I enjoyed it and it worked way better then I expected.