Rogue downsides?

[Egon the Monkey]

This was posted in the new Rogue Perk thread, and I thought I'd bring it over here to discuss to not bring it offtopic.

It's not the rogue's  strengths that make them less powerful, it's their significant  downsides!

I agree, but I think that Garem's critique manages to miss the real downsides of the class, as they're more the result of EfU design than the class iteself.

Low HP

It's not that bad. You're not a tank, so it doesn't matter if you run/invis off to heal. If you cast your mind back to the Dwarves Garem, I played a rogue/bard there who could tank a few things if he had to. D6 is OK, just leaves you vulnerable to Greataxe Crits.

moderate AC on a server where anything less than 25  on a quest is death in a matter of a few rounds

Rogue AC is actually pretty good. With 4AC from Mage Armor, 3 from DEX  +2 from tumble, you're on a par with Fullplate using just one buff, and Uncanny Dodge stops you losing it to flank attacks. Buff up for another 1-2 Dex Ac, take  Shield Prof if you want another +3 on a more combative rogue. If you  need 25 AC, you're likely facing stuff, which means you aren't Sneak  Attacking it, making your damage kinda crappy. Your best defence is actually Tumble, which lets to run  away from an attacker to get behind something else to backstab, without  being killed to death via AoOs.

moderate AB

You get +2 AB vs a flat-footed opponent, and if you don't have your opponent flat-footed, you're not landing Sneak Attacks, so you're in a losing battle anyway.

and low  fort and will saves (most important for PvP, arguably)

Really, PVP is where Rogues are scary dangerous. Wands, massive damage output if you can use a Tanglebag/Darkness/Stun, and the the fastest way to drop a wizard short of a monk IMO. Straight out of stealth into 3-5 D6 extra damage, ability to dodge most direct damage spells. Willsaves generally get beat by potions. Speaking as someone who likes playing wizards, I am glad they have some glaring weaknesses to make up for Evasion.

You might have noticed that the major thrust of my argument is Sneak Attacks. That's because they're the Rogue's Thing. Any other class is capable of being a decent trapper/lockpick/spy if they build for it. What a Rogue can do is drop a mob with one shot using a knife in the neck, or push a PC onto healing spam with massive damage Sneaks. The trouble is that a fair chunk of EfU monsters don't HAVE a neck. Or kidneys. Or anything else to aim a lethal strike at. That means that on a quest or area where those sort of things are likely, a cookie-cutter fighter/rogue is as good.

[Damien]

this is getting stupid, we dont need multiple threads addressing the same issue, two are enough

also you are just plain wrong egon

[Egon the Monkey]

I love the smell of well argued debate in the morning. There's one thread that's now dead and replaced by Caddies one, and I didn't want to derail that one with discussion too. If I'm so wrong, I'd like to see your response to Gregor Farson, Tessaele Sphaer and Kethra Marsk kicking huge amounts of ass in PVP as rogues.

If I'm wrong about the questing use of rogues, correct me or discuss. That's why it's a "Discussion thread". Multiple threads help keep one thread from being clogged up with a dozen different discussions.

[Garem]

A prepared rogue will lose to a prepared (insert virtually anything else). EfU is a place where moderation will leave you screwed more often than not. Rogues are remarkably moderate at lots of things, which is handy dandy anywhere but on Ymph where even random jungle cats have ABs in the 10 to 12 range, better HP than most rogues, nice stealth, and only a few feats early. Rogues don't improve NEARLY at the rate that every other class does. That's why low levels of rogue in multiclass are nice and why high level rogues are at a significant disadvantage overall. All those nice buffs that rogues get to do, fighters, barbarians, and rangers do too. Clerics and druids with the SAME AB progression as rogues... get to cast most of them FREE. And each of those classes has better HP than rogues to boot.

I stand by my assertions. Rogues have massive weaknesses, everyone knows them, everyone can exploit them and generally speaking there's not a damned thing the rogue can do about it. This is coming from someone who hasn't even ever played a pure rogue. I'm basing all this on the things I know to exploit in a fight.

[Coldburn]

I heard Bonhomie and Naga will play pure Rogues to prove us all wrong.

That said, until they do I have to agree with everything Garem says.

[Egon the Monkey]

I heard Bonhomie and Naga will play pure Rogues to prove us all wrong.

If Capricious can do it, if TNVW can do it, Naga can probably do it while playing WoW with his other hand.  

I'd suggest walking a mile in the class's shoes before convincing yourself they suck. You've played here long enough to know how to beat any class if you have the supplies/build for it. KD a druid, PhK a rogue, hit a Cleric with Reflex saves and KD him.  You can deal with the weaknesses, and in fact exploit them to your own advantage. Rogues tend to last ages on EfU because they aren't expected to tank and can avoid risks by shooting, running off, etc. Plus of course spells that do hit the backline you can generally Evade, and you can spot things creeping up to ambush you. You can also if you want to be more combative, use the 8 SP a level to crossclass stuff like Discipline, Spellcraft and Taunt, and blow off maxing out Open Lock and Disable trap.

I agree, they are a one-trick pony. A high-level rogue is bloody scary at Sneak Attack damage and gains nothing else from Rogue as opposed to having other classes and maxing out the Rogue skills he wants. That said it is at least a *good* trick. A rogue was kicking my PC's ass around the Warden's last night by the simple trick of Tanglebag/Sneak Attack (and three crits in a row but it's still a good tactic if you can dispel any Freedoms they have :P), and Farsun used to do the same, hell he won straight-up duels on a pure rogue IIRC.

I suppose how to "fix" them relies entirely on what feels missing. Caddies suggests sneaky spy bonuses, but these criticisms seem to be on the clas's survival prospects. I mean, despite all these horrible assumed drawbacks, they're still hugely popular as a class on EfU beyond just 3 levels.

If you get a rogue to L10 then Crip Strike is brutal, as is arguably Skill Mastery trapping. There is though that huge gap between L3: Uncanny Dodge and L10: Uber Feat. Barbs are the shining example IMO of how to make a pure class attractive, you see far more pure barbs than barb/rogues, bard/bards etc with EfU adding in both a good progression of bonuses and a rage menalty for minmaxers.

[Capricious]

Rogues are the single worst class at PvP here, simply put. All they can do is ambush an unwitting mage who has no friends nearby, and is mostly unbuffed, and even then they take a huge risk. In any other kind of PvP the characters will turn to deal with the rogue quickly in order to negate their Sneak Attacks.

You may claim this is not so but having played a pure rogue for six months, a rogue who frequently enters PvP is a soon-to-be-very-dead rogue.

What pure rogues excel at is roleplay worth, and an amassing of a huge number of skills, but this requires that you stay clever and one step ahead of people who might want you dead. They often stay alive a long period of time simply because they are slippery, and hard to get a hold of.

[Damien]

I love the smell of well argued debate in the morning. There's one thread that's now dead and replaced by Caddies one, and I didn't want to derail that one with discussion too. If I'm so wrong, I'd like to see your response to Gregor Farson, Tessaele Sphaer and Kethra Marsk kicking huge amounts of ass in PVP as rogues.

If I'm wrong about the questing use of rogues, correct me or discuss. That's why it's a "Discussion thread". Multiple threads help keep one thread from being clogged up with a dozen different discussions.

Farson had crap saves and never fought anything alone as well as custom loot, he didnt get danyal down to injured in their 1v1.

Tessele has killed two people, one being a mage and she prebuffed, she is also not a pure rogue.

Kethra Marsk had ridic loot, her thread explains how she was so strong.

This is the problem with rogues, they rely on custom loot more than any other class. Now let's look further at your attempt to prove to rogues are strong : -

Good HP = They have managable hp, not good hp. The average hp being aroudn 60hp at level 8 for a pure rogue which is what a buffed two handed weapon crit? or two rounds vs a bastardsword.

High AC = They can get as much ac as a fighter which might sound good but when you take into account they have lower hp to begin with and their ac i.e cats grace can also be dispelled, last i checked you cant dispel fullplate.

Low Fort and Will saves are crucial for pvp, I am unaware of who you have been pvping but people have transcended from using spells like fireball and combust to spells like ice storm, evards, firebrand, none of these spells you can evade. Also take into account a hold person, phk, colourspray which are quite common spells carried by mages.

Tanglefoot has also become more useless with all the saves loot you can pick up, not to mention freedom potions which about 80% of the server will pop for pvp. Also the fact that spellcraft works for tanglefoot bags as has made them become quite useless.

As for wands, you need a UMD check to use them which although is easy to succeed its still possible to fail at lvl 8, not to mention all the really good pvp wands cost around 8k which last I checked is hard to get unless you horde every quest and sell everything that drops from quests.

Take account that I've been seen by mages with C/C when I've had 33/30 stealth removing my ability to strike first with sneak attack and also the fact I don't get two attacks till level 9 and a mage wont fall to one sneak attack unless you are very lucky.

I'll also use the example of when me and Tessele attacked Karrin in the massive pvp onslaught, we were fully buffed and she had a few spells up including II. We attacked her out of stealth, both missing because of concealment and she used an acid sheath, we both got to injured before people able to subdue her and that was duel to the fact it was too laggy for her to cast another spell.

[Capricious]

Kethra Marsk was not a pure rogue either.

[Egon the Monkey]

Thank you for backing up your arguments, Damien. I'm speaking from having played rogues that never got into PVP much, and characters that faced rogues in PVP. Oh and one rogue who used to mug people, but that was with a team. As with all experiences, Your Mileage May Vary. My point of deconstructing Garem's argument was to find out where people agreed rogues (I was including any PC with mostly rogue levels even if they do have 1 Fighter like Marsk for feats or 1 ranger for sneaking) do really lose out, as I felt saw them as useful. Bear in mind, I only mentioned PVP once in that first post, at the end. The rest was all talking about how they roll in questing, which was my own experience of getting stuck being useless by unsneakable mobs or people ignoring traps.

Perhaps it might be worth comparing them to Monks or bards, who also play a lowish HP, light combat 2ndary Ab potentially stealther/social role, and seeing why they kick so much ass pure and rogues fail to do so. This doesn't seem to be a thing Spot or search bonuses will help, nor -1 AB social perks.

[Coldburn]

I have to say that pure Monks in PVP are pretty crazy. If I need to argument that, sure it costs heavy supplies but you boost your AC to 32+ with easily accessable supplies, and get good AB with many attacks, Improved Knockdowns and Stunning Fists. As prime escape artists, when the PVP turns sour they have the Discipline, HP, Saves and un-Hasted movement speed to get away and live to fight again.

All of this, Rogues have not. If I Rogue can't lock anyone in either a Tanglefoot Bag, or constrain the target somehow so he can flank, he's pretty much at a major disadvantage.

Pure Bards I can't comment on. I don't think they exist? Unless you mean with 1 or 2 levels of Fighter/ Barbarian, well then they do exceptionally well.

[GoblinSapper]

I don't wish to comment on existing chars, so i'll mention Caius Drayden, who was pure bard and went around crushbotting everyone. Admittedly he had the benefit of battlemarch perk (this was pre-songbook).
 
Now, a Pure Rogue SHOULDN"T be crushbotting people, in a straight up fight. Thats not the point of rogues. You should however be able to blindside the hell out of people.
 
Perhaps we could address the completly BS "only 2 traps per rogue" limitation people tell me we have? What joy is there in playing a rogue if you can't trick a barb into running a gauntlet of flaming, spikey death and laughing as he falls a foot from where you stand peppering him with 1d6 non sneak atks.
 
Honestly, who doesn't clean up their traps after pvp anyway, the good ones are rare.
 
Personally I feel the biggest downside for rogues is there aren't many quests where you feel like your a welcome or contributing member at mid/low lvls. On orcs runs you can flank snipe and disarm those bullocks rockfall tra- oh wait you can't disarm those nevermind, FLAG them at least. But on the undead quests, not much use for rogues, except that one area in the Jergali temple where everyone has the trap locations memorized, or can see them because the floor is discolored in those spots.

[SilentSouth]

People are way to focused on the PVP aspects of the server. I understand that PVP is a very big part of it, but looking too much into the mechanics and building your PC -for- PVP kinda ruins the fun for everyone IMO.

Sometimes i discuss my ideas with other players, and they are like 'You might want to adjust [feat X] and change a few stats here incase [So and so happens]'

Don't build your PC around PVP, build your PC around your concept. And if PVP -is- your concept e.g a bounty hunter, then try and make it unique, spice it up a little rather then just power building.

I know i went a little off topic here, but what i'm trying to say is, so what if Rogues are weak, i'm getting sick of complaints to mechanics when people shouldn't be looking at that side of the game.

[Egon the Monkey]

Sam White's a pure Bard, and there've been some others. What might look like Fighter or Barb levels can be Weapon Prof Martial. SilentSouth, Drayden was 2 Fighter, see his screeny thread.

I'm trying to kick around ideas on what sort of thing would make a good suggestion to make a rogue balance out. I wasn't starting this to say "I'm right, suck it up or don't play a rogue". I did it to see how either DM-given changes could make the class more powerful, or a change in how we think about playing rogues could see them get around some of the limitations a little (Drop Bluff, and take Discipline for example).

Generic bosts, both PVP and not, that Rogues could get from scripted bonuses like Rangers and Barbs get. Bards and Monks are the closest classes in skills and HP range to Rogues, so what from them would make pure/mostly rogues better?

What They Have a Rogue Doesn't:

• Better Defence from both Spells and Knockdown Spam, for getaways.
• Speed either from innate bonuses or songs.
• Physical defence (Bardic buffs, Monk Ac bonuses, Shield Prof, armor for non-finessers)
• Ways to compensate for the 2ndary AB.
• Buffs

• Progression. A Monk gains new abilities each level, a Bard gains new spells and better song. A Rogue doesn't progress much.
• HP for a bard
• Stuns, be them Stunfist, KD or disabling spells.

What a Rogue Has That They Don't:

• A lot of skill points and a few more skills
• Flank damage with any weapon, at any range.
• Better choices in weaponry than a Bard (but not a monk with all the gloves and fist dmg).

So, what could be moved to the Rogue's arsenal to boost them in actual combat, as well as ideas that would allow them to specialise in spying/engineering/buckling the swash better than another class?

[GoblinSapper]

you forgot traps.