As I said in my former Ranger Primer, this is only to introduce Rogues to various things in their class that they should know about...it'snott meant to offer some huge dearth of info on how best to build your rogue or what skills/stats to certainly use. Just my experience in Beta playing a Rogue and fighting against Rogues and the conversations that have come from it all.
I need to credit Teef, and so does every Rogue, he was by far the most influential Rogue Tester in Beta...
New Rogue Skills
Play Dead: (Trickery)
This skill is freaking hilarious. But also incredibly useful. You fake a death, which renders you literally animatedly dead, and if you have enough skill (skill points add +5 to the level of mob affected just like Hide) the mob/boss disengages and walks around for 30 seconds confident that it's killed you. And you literally can just lay there, inert and wait for regen or whatever you need. It's similar in effect to a distract, but you don't really drop aggro, just drop it temporarily as long as you don't move. But all your skills cooldown, and you can literally just wait for your tank or whoever to recapture aggro and then get you back into the fray.
The funny thing about this skill though, is it also seems to work in PvP(and without the need to put skill points into it), maybe not after people are used to it. But Teef quite a few times in Free for All arena fights fooled people into thinking he was dead and then when we snapped up to fight others he would wreck us. Obviously as players become savvy it will be less effective, but it's a really funny tactic in pvp to the unaware or noob players. It should be noted that on the ground your resistances to all DMG is lowered, so if people, like players don't fall for it, they can wreck you.
Smoke Bomb: (Debuff)
Similar to how Howling Wind lowers targets attack, this skill lowers Target's defense. It's most useful in the Otherworld versus the Eyes, they are really vulnerable to a smoke bomb. The particle effect is a bunch of black smoke all around the target and with a few points and a bit of DEX it can be a pretty effective skill. It's not gonna move any mountains, but especially vs bosses and a few vulnerable mob's it's cool.
Assassinate: (Direct DMG) This skill is interesting, it's another heavy DMG attack that only works if your target has less than 20% health. If it isn't at less than 20% you will get "Target's Health is too high" messages. It's meant to be a finishing move, similar to a throat slit, just total end of battle epic DMG. The skill is built like that and is fueled by STR so high STR rogues, well who isn't one? Will wreck in both PvP and PvE as well as at the end of boss fights.
This is also a skill that's casting time is 75% of the delay/weapon speed of the equipped dagger. This means that players using WinterKing Daggers won't be able to cast this skill as fast as Meteoric Daggers etc.. Is it noticeable in skill time? Yes it is. But that said both Winterking/any other Dagger DMG is added on to the Assassinate DMG as well, making this skill hit much harder with a Winterking and yet also be slower. Does the DMG of Winterking legitimize the delay? Up to you to decide.
It should be noted as a small addition that the other two skills that effect a Rogue like this in 75% delay and + weapon DMG are Rend and Sneaky. Both will cast slower with slower weapons and hit with the DMG of the weapon that is equipped.
Existing Skill Changes:
Hide: this skill actually makes you quite almost invisible. It's important to note this, because if you hang toward the walls of the arena, it's quite hard to pick up a rogue especially if fireballs are exploding I took a screenshot of my noob rogue in HIDE to give you an idea of what I mean by almost invis
Well the skill breakdown of the Rogue's ruling stats are:
Quick Strike: STR
Rend: STR
Sneaky: STR
Assassinate: STR
Smoke Bomb: DEX
Hide: No Stat
Poison Wep: DEX
Play Dead: No Stat
It's been widely debated in the beta forums what the stat breakdown of a rogue should be post-Update 3. I need to preface this statement to explain that I am talking about/to players with at least full warden and a regen ammy at the very least.. These comments should not be weighted toward players that are using the DEX requirements of Ancient Gear, nor the non energy regen of no ammy. Your stats will be much less streamlined till you get the Warden/Meteoric Energy bonuses,
In terms of skills, like I have said on previous Guides/Primers... Choosing to take 3 skills to 25/25 (and a bit of skill points left over) is suicide on an energy level. It will destroy your energy pool no matter what your regen is. It's smarter to float at least 4 skills at 17-18/25 and then if you wanna risk a high powered single skill or float the points over a wide range of stuff, fair enough.
This raises the idea of: Do Rogues need to raise their energy? I would say yes, but that said, some beta testers disagree and think that a rogue can float at like 10-20 energy if they have solid regen and are judicious in their skill use. I think 40 personally covers your bases, mainly because Rogue skills seem to use less energy than many other classes if kept at a responsible 17-18 level. Also like Mages/Druids with focus, and Rangers with DEX there is a HUGE law of diminishing returns once you raise a stat past 270-300. Once past there, every single added point does so much less added DMG versus what earlier added points did.
So I personally feel that rather than ballooning your STR thru the roof you can add a tiny handful into making sure you won't succumb to energy concerns after a long battle.
As you can see there are some skills, the non-DMG, cunning based variety that are DEX based. My understanding from Teef after a long talk with him about the class was that while a handful of DEX especially around 50 will REALLY significantly add tons of points to those 2 skills, it may not be necessary to do so. Teef seemed to rock a 70/30% STR/VIT build in Beta and he rocked almost everyone who faced him. I'm not saying that 70/30 was insta-win by any means, he didn't add focus, he didn't add DEX, and he just went hardcore on STR and held enough VIT to survive barely. But then again, he was a quite achieved player, and we also had a few rings that gave us +10 focus etc, so I don't trust across the board that a 70/30 build now without DEX or Focus is going to be as accomplished as it was in beta. For all the prior reasons I listed with focus rings, and diminishing returns on loading STR.
It's obvious to me that a mid level rogue will need to juggle stats much like a Ranger will need to. Mainly because the exploits that exist in the Live Game that let you raise your DEX and put on your ancient gear, and then rebirth and change yer DEX to STR and still keep yer DEX gear on...are fixed. A rebirth book will strip you naked of all items, jewelry and armor and weapons. So mid level players will need to juggle focus, DEX and STR along with VIT to gain their warden gear. I imagine a mid lvl rogue will have a much more difficult stat-oriented chore at making this all work out.
Other small comments relative to rogues:
Mages now have a Lure of Assassins, we tested this in beta and it's highly effective to balloon both Rogue and Ranger dps in boss fights. I would cozy up to a clan Mage and let them know a few points in that would make you happy.
It's obvious that many Rogue's will make STR their one trick pony, also please do note that your bandage wounds and med/recuperate like all other players runs on VIT. So if you keep yer VIT low you may find your bandaging is super nerfed. Not saying this should make you pour points out of STR, but you should know the nerf is coming if your VIT isn't a decent number.
Conclusion:
Yep that's it. There really aren't a number a varied builds for the rogue, as in you don't go Group/DPS, you just go DPS
I think there are enough rogue beta testers to chime in on the stat discussions, but I tried to just give an example of how focus will be an issue if yer not ready for how much any skills beyond even 15 are in energy cost. However energy you give yerself to deal with that, and depending on your items, is yer call.
All the best,
Tea
