How do I not suck with rogue?

[adrian]

Preamble: I have played a LOT of TOME, got 7 wins on normal 1 on insane, but after having played literally hundreds of rogues, I have to admit I am quite simply terrible at them.

I have had ONE rogue reach the east, but didn't reach the prides, another rogue has recently reached dreadfell 5 before dying, but the vast majority of my rogues die in T1 and T2 dungeon. How on EARTH do you play this class? I have played corrupters, summoners, bulwarks, archmages, anorothils, oozemancers and bunch of other classes and I UNDERSTAND how they function, how you build them and how you win with them, but rogues still baffle me.

All the guides I try to find are for outdated versions of the game and are of limited value when I try and apply the mode of thinking of the author to the game.

While playing I try to pull single enemies early on and stun them to death, once I get some upgraded weapons and gear and can kill things (and have a few escapes) I get more aggressive and am not afraid of jumping into an area of the scintillating caverns with 3 crystals because I know their limits and mine, at the first sign of trouble I pop my defensive runes/infusions or teleport out. In places like nur 3 I play very very carefully using LOS as much as possible to funnel enemies into the best places to fight back, and I almost always pick up a physical and a mental wild infusion and a teleport rune if I can find one, I buy one if I get one before shalore starting zones.

Build wise, I usually go early dex to get flurry, tumble + dagger mastery asap with about 1/3rd of stats into con, at level 7-8 I pump cunning up to 28 to take numble movements (the leap) after that I go 2 dex 1 con until I can take 1 rank in the tier four talents, then 2 cunning 1 con after that to allow me to rank up nimble movements and get the other cunning skills (and raise stealth effectiveness)

I gave traps a serious try for a few months but just couldn't get any further with them, and they annoy me more often than not, the really dangerous enemies are the ones like oozing horrors and the weirding beast and other stuff like that which GRABS you and pulls you to them so the traps don't actually help when you need them most.

Here is an example rogue: http://te4.org/characters/28303/tome/0f ... 6850539980
Here is the rogue who made it to the east: http://te4.org/characters/28303/tome/b1 ... 031f900a69

These two happen to be a skeletons, but I have played rogues of virtually every race, probably 50+ tries on each halfling, dwarf, cornac, skeleton and thalore.

PS: I know I should be playing the "Shalore master race /s" but those prancing spell-weaving assholes can go ignite another cataclysm before I'll play as one

Thanks in advance.

[spastic]

For starters, I wouldn't put any points into Con until you've maxed both Dex (first) and Cun (second).

I also think your talent distribution is a bit out of whack. It's been a while since I played rogue, but I don't think there's much point in maxing Hide in Plain Sight, Flurry, Deadly Strike, or Whirlwind. Whirlwind and Deadly Strikes especially should have one point only, and flurry only needs 2-3 points.

With all of these talent points saved you can max Momentum, get 3 in precision, and put some points into backstab and cripple. Momentum will dramatically improve your DPS, as will Backstab. Cripple is good against any creature that it works against.

In generics, I would leave tumble at 1 and work on other skills first, such as trained reactions, bone armour, maybe Piercing Sight or Evasion. You also probably don't need more than 2 points in Accuracy for most of the game, especially on Normal or Nightmare, since you're maxing Dex.

By moving your talent points around and maxing Dex/Cun first you'll have significantly higher DPS and better damage avoidance (Trained Reactions), and you might find the game becomes significantly easier.

If you're going to try this on Nightmare or higher make sure to pick up a torque of mindblast from Zigur, it's almost essential.

[Micbran]

Somebody find Calodine. He'd love this.

[Noel]

Hmmm...just ran a skeleton rogue to L20 to compare (http://te4.org/characters/1768/tome/bdf ... 1b9accb845). It's a little trickier than the halfling rogue that I won with a while back (http://te4.org/characters/1768/tome/f33 ... fc79ca2360), but not too bad. Just finished Bearscape with the current equipment. One frustrating death to a team of brecklorn rares in the alt Maze - one cursed and one cursed/skirmisher.

Key thing I've found with rogues is to damage or get out. It's hard to damage if you're not hitting -- like spastic said, you need more Dex. I notice that you only hit half the time with the Ancient Elven Mummy. Perhaps I overdid it a bit with 3/5 in Combat Accuracy as well as pumping Dex, but I hate it when I miss. Dex also pumps Bone Armor -- pretty useful.

Oh, and I'd wait until a bit later to do the elven ruins -- usually after Dreadfell, or sometimes after returning from the East.

For stats, I generally pump Cun over Dex at first until I reach 5/1/1/5 in Stealth, so that I can stay in Stealth as much as possible and get the Shadowstrike buff. Then, I pump Dex over Cun to get accuracy and defense. Right now, I'm getting 400+ damage from stealth with Dual Strike, Flurry, or Deadly Strikes.

Debuffs are a pain, and doubly so without infusions. I notice that your L21 skel tried to keep fighting while disarmed. That's scary -- most of your offense and a lot of your defense (5/5 in Dual Weapon Defense?) disappears when you're disarmed. If your Heat Beam is on cooldown, get out of Dodge right now. Doubly so if you're also Counterstriked...

Debuffs on the enemy are a joy. I really value things like rings of misery and weapons with debuff procs for a rogue. If you can debuff from stealth, the battle is usually over.

Snow Giant Wraps / Mighty Girdle is a great combination for Berserkers, but for a rogue, I'd use the Girdle of Calm Waters and look for gloves with some proc. Even on a skeleton without infusions, the Girdle's healmod helps. With the Girdle and the Ring of Growth, I've got 50% healmod already, and 2/5 Reassemble gives me 400+ HP. BTW, I usually leave maxing Reassemble and Misdirection until later -- if I think I need them, what I really need is to run away. My char is a bit weak on that yet -- I swap between the +5 infravision pickaxe and the psychoport torque depending on which I think the situation demands. Should have had the torque when I was facing the brecklorns...

I also tend to leave Nimble Movements at 1/5 until late mid-game. I much prefer luring single NPCs to me rather than jumping into an unknown open space where I could be surrounded and lose stealth.

FWIW, I developed my rogue tactics before the Acrobatics tree was added, so I haven't worked much on integrating those yet.

tl;dr - pump Dex, wait until later to max talents with decreasing marginal benefit, hit hard, and run away fast

[mikekchar]

I'm not qualified to give you advice because you are definitely a better player than me, but... I spent a fair amount of time playing with traps and really enjoy them. I think trap tactics are fascinating, but they take some time to work out. The best traps, IMHO, are the AOE traps like Explosion and Poison Gas. The problem is that you will get caught in the effect yourself. The key is to have lots of movement -- set the trap under your own square, wait until the mob is close, jump x squares away in the correct direction. This works incredibly well and the acrobatics tree probably really helps out. I actually did all my playing before that, though, and there are lots of great items that can help you out.

Another important tactic is using bear trap to slow your opponent down, then set an AOE trap. right after it and retreat at leisure to a place to watch the fireworks. This also works very well (depending on your enemy) with the catapult trap. If you have a nice sling, you can retreat to a safe distance and then take pot shots as they walk onto the trap... Actually one of my big pet peeves is that pulling people towards you does not set off traps. They have to willingly walk onto the trap. If they jump onto the trap (or teleport on) it doesn't trigger either, so you have to be careful. This is one of my biggest wishes for improvement because it would make traps very, very powerful in combination with some items.

The other main skill in the traps tree is the lure. You can split mobs so that you can thin them out a bit, or buy enough time to set an AOE trap and run away. The main use, though, is to attract spells. There are basically not powerful spells with zero cooldown, so throwing a lure into a room, waiting for the spell caster to use their big gun and then popping up and killing the spellcaster before their cooldown is over is a great strategy. A cloak of the void walker (or whatever it is), or some item with rush on it is very very handy. Usually you can buy one in Last Hope.

Finally, sticking a nighshade trap or a disarming trap in a doorway is a good way to deal with a single foe. Remember that they have to walk willingly on the square, so your strategy is to make an appearance, set a trap and then run away in the opposite direction of the monster you are luring. Then hide, rest and go back for more. It's not really an honourable way to fight, but what the heck... you're a rogue!

A couple of pieces of advice: Don't get lure up to level 5 before getting the trap launcher. Self detonating traps are really not all that great unless you are really, really far away. In the early game you want absolute control over what you are doing and can't afford to get blown up in your own trap! Stealth is useful in traps, but mostly when you run away. Before you get Unseen Actions, setting a trap makes you visible so there are surprisingly few opportunities that make stealth useful. Because of this, I think a shield rune is practically necessary. Lure helps a lot, but you are still going to run into a lot of situations where you have to be the bait. Obviously a movement infusion is very helpful as well. Finally, I'm sure that sticky smoke is useful for running away, but I could never get it to work well for me. In the end if you have a choice between this and Hide in plain sight, then the latter is going to work much better.

[Atarlost]

I also think your talent distribution is a bit out of whack. It's been a while since I played rogue, but I don't think there's much point in maxing Hide in Plain Sight, Flurry, Deadly Strike, or Whirlwind. Whirlwind and Deadly Strikes especially should have one point only, and flurry only needs 2-3 points.

With all of these talent points saved you can max Momentum, get 3 in precision, and put some points into backstab and cripple. Momentum will dramatically improve your DPS, as will Backstab. Cripple is good against any creature that it works against.

I'm not much of a rogue player, but as a general rule any talent that does a multiple of weapon damage only merits 1 point until late unless it has a very good rider. Maybe that's a little less true for rogues since the first attack from stealth is so important, but I'm pretty sure that 4 points in flurry while shadowstrike only has 1 on Elunne is absurd. I also find dual weapon training suspect. First, subtract 50% from the number it gives, that's the base off hand damage. Then halve the benefit because the primary hand doesn't need it. That's your best case. If your daggers aren't putting out the same damage you'll have the better in your primary hand so the benefit is even less. You can probably get more benefit from lots of other skills.

I've heard that backstab is not worth taking except as a prerequisite because stun resistance gets too common in the later game. It would start to become obsolete about where Brenalen got to. It'd be a possible place to float points I suppose.

[cctobias]

I know of a few ways to potentially win with a Rogue, but the problem I always have is that it always seems to me that some other class would do the strategy better.

Dual Wield - SB is better at it.
Stealth ranged - SB is better at it.
Traps - Skirmisher is better at it.

etc.

I don't actually start with a class when I start up a character rather I start with some kind of overall strategy for defense/offsense and then see which class would fit with that decently. Pretty much always Rogue turns up second or third bananna for the stuff it qualifies for. They can certainly be made to work, but I just don't wind up picking them anymore.

[Noel]

Thanks for the trap tips, mikekchar. Really helpful. I haven't spent much time figuring out trapping tactics yet, and they sound like a wonderfully different kind of fun. Most of my rogues have simply used the archaic pre-acrobatic, pre-sling, non-trapping tactics -- and they're two of the top three on my creation list:

• * Cornac Rogue (Maj'Eyal; normal difficulty) 68
  * Halfling Archer (Maj'Eyal; normal difficulty) 45
  * Halfling Rogue (Maj'Eyal; normal difficulty) 37

Hmm...thought I saw an addon that allowed forced movement to trigger traps...aha!

http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/edge-tweaks

[cctobias]

Thanks for the trap tips, mikekchar. Really helpful. I haven't spent much time figuring out trapping tactics yet, and they sound like a wonderfully different kind of fun. Most of my rogues have simply used the archaic pre-acrobatic, pre-sling, non-trapping tactics -- and they're two of the top three on my creation list:

• * Cornac Rogue (Maj'Eyal; normal difficulty) 68
  * Halfling Archer (Maj'Eyal; normal difficulty) 45
  * Halfling Rogue (Maj'Eyal; normal difficulty) 37

Hmm...thought I saw an addon that allowed forced movement to trigger traps...aha!

http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/edge-tweaks

If you go traps shoot for getting gravity trap from the prodigies. Its very strong.

[spastic]

I won once with a rogue a long time ago on Normal/Adventure, but it's been some time. I've been trying to get a Skeleton Rogue going in Nightmare and it's absolutely miserable - I finally managed to beat the Master but it took a lot of deaths to get there. The lack of movement infusions especially just kills me since there are so many stuns - with a living rogue you can movement in, do some damage while immune to stuns/pins, and then Nimble movements away.

I think Atarlost is right about only 1 point in Backstab to get to Cripple, which does work on a lot of enemies, including the Master. I tried to get Momentum going early but found I didn't have the stamina to sustain it, and Trained Reactions also really hurt the stamina department - I could see getting tumble up to range 3 or 4 before trying to use Trained Reactions. I opened up the Rush tree for another 1 point wonder initiation (Rush) and Blinding Speed. It's a shame Combat Veteran is locked, since Rogues could really benefit from a bit of stamina regen, just not at the cost of a category point. I skipped poisons since everything already dies in about 3 turns. I could see poison being situationally useful on some bosses, but not at the cost of blinding speed.

I don't use traps, but I could see them being useful, especially lure for splitting up large groups of mobs. There's nothing worse than a room full of wights to make you think twice about being able to get in, kill, and get out due to the confusion spam.

Misdirection is awesome although the defense boost isn't great on Nightmare, since you fight a lot of high accuracy enemies. It seems to be worth 4-5 points based on the number of times I saw ranged nukes and arrows missing me.

I still think Hide in Plain Sight is 1 point only. It still works well when you're far enough away from enemies, which means you can usually Tumble/Nimble away and then use it. Maybe very late game I could see putting more points in it, but probably not.

[Mex]

Every time I think about playing rogue I just remember shadowblade and play that instead. It's a straight up a better version of rogue with almost the exact same options with extras, like more global speed and better mobility options.

Traps seem pretty bad and tedious to use.

Stealth apparently got a buff in 1.3 so it might be worth trying.

[Atarlost]

I still think Hide in Plain Sight is 1 point only. It still works well when you're far enough away from enemies, which means you can usually Tumble/Nimble away and then use it. Maybe very late game I could see putting more points in it, but probably not.

Probably. I haven't touched rogue in ages, but I'm running a shadowblade and I can usually just pop out of sight to reset stealth if unseen actions fails. IIRC Nimble is basically a targeted teleport so rogues should be able to manage the same. HiPS might be used occasionally to reset the cooldown on stealth, but once you get unseen actions that shouldn't come up too much.

[Death From Above]

Every time I think about playing rogue I just remember shadowblade and play that instead. It's a straight up a better version of rogue with almost the exact same options with extras, like more global speed and better mobility options.

Which is saying a lot because Shadowblades are ludicrously frail too until they get time shield. Those first few levels are a massive combination of luck and skill just to survive.

Rogues are even worse, and basically unplayable if you're not a grandmaster at this game, sorry.

This is really more a universal TOME problem that's become pretty clear to me with about 150 hours of play: the early game is much easier with either heavy armor characters or with some kind of mage/ranged attack. Rogues (and shadowblades) don't have the armor to shrug off attacks, and don't have the range to avoid them outright. So the early levels are really a pretty serious RNG festival. They clearly run a vastly distant third in the early levels, and it's definitely frustrating. I am enjoying fiddling with Shadowblades but actually keeping one alive long enough to learn anything requires something akin to divine intervention. And they're the much easier option.

I'm sure they get great later but I can't keep one alive long enough to find out.

[elboyo]

I would really like to reiterate what Spastic wrote:

If you're going to try this on Nightmare or higher make sure to pick up a torque of mindblast from Zigur, it's almost essential.

[mikekchar]

I decided to start a trap based rogue again because of this thread. I think I made 2 circuits of the map kiting Prox the mighty. LOL. But I went straight into Bill and after one stupid death managed to use vault well enough to keep distance between me and him. This is on Normal... I'm not sure if I could kill Bill off the start in Nightmare. It would certainly be a challenge. If you compare a rogue to other characters in the early game, you are definitely going to find it tricky, but I think it is quite fun. If I play an archmage you might as well start me off at level 10 or 15 because I'm really not likely to die (if I'm not playing a yeek ). That's boring, I think.

Actually, if you want to practice surviving difficult situations with a rogue, playing a yeek rogue is quite good. Lots of opportunities to practice traps!