Stealth-less Rogue

[hellruler]

After a rogue win on exploration (I suck, but that's not the case), I felt that even with tons of cunning and 5/5 on Stealth, I could still be seem by most enemies during Prides/HighPeak (lvl 30+, but made life a lot easier before this point)

So I started a Shadowblade and jsut ignored the Stealth tree. I know the comparison is a bit bad since Rogue and Shadowblade aren't that much alike, but I've been doing a lot better since I had more points to spend on other skills

Is Stealth really needed, or just a role-playing aspect?

[Eyro]

I've been reading the forums and trying my own Shadowblade, and I honestly have to say, stealth helps, it's just not a gamebreaker like in most games it is implemented in as a side mechanic.

Essentially, if mobs do notice you, they don't know exactly where you are, so will miss stuff often and you still get the crit even if they briefly glance at you. However, if you got to High point you probably know that, and if they just outright see you, I can see why that's ineffective.

[Davion Fuxa]

Stealth-less Rogues or Shadowblades are totally viable. Both of more then enough talents to invest in if they skip stealth and can still have decent defense and offensive ability to compensate.

Shadowblades can garner great Defense through Dual Weapon Defense and Blur Sight, they also have several debuff abilities that they can use to tie down opponents along with powerful tactical abilities. Through a combination of tactical abilities you can raise or augment your offensive abilities to be more mobile or defensive as the situation dictates.

Rogues in particular become near untouchable with just 5/5 Misdirection, and through a combination of Traps and Poisons can keep their opponents off guard. Mobility was... somewhat improved with the last update which gave them acrobatics, but using your Mobility offensively is still going to end up being somewhat lacklustre; though unlocking Combat Techniques for Rush and picking up Giant Leap to help out can offset those problems. Rogues have one of the the highest Burst DPS capabilities in game, due in part to the lack of stamina cost need to power up sustains or powerful buffs like Unstoppable.

As a note, my current Let's Learn is pretty well focusing on a 'Stealth-less' Thaloran Shadowblade. Go to the thread here if you wish to follow up on it:

http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=41778

[Plak]

If the target info on the mouseover tooltip doesn't say "looking at you" but "looking [direction]", they don't know exactly where you are and are likely to target the wrong square even without Misdirection. Still, Stealth is a damage tree first and foremost, and the massive boost from Shadowstrike is reason enough to pick it up. Rogues are all about burst damage, and they need all the power they can get to make up for their lack of defenses and relatively poor mobility.

[tylor]

Problem with Rogue is that his skills (stealth, venoms) are very good vs weak and solitary mobs that are not a problem anyway, but are much less useful vs real threats - bosses and mobs.

So, play Marauder:)