Staying alive in melee and avoiding nasty npc tricks?

[Vagabond]

I did stormcleave elite last night (at 7, I held off leveling to 8 because of forum advice and immediately went and took the level after the group finished. This is pretty bad advice for heavily multiclassed builds) and, of course, found that my 30~ ac and blur wasn't really sufficient. No real surprise doing a lvl10 elite quest with giants, but I felt squishy enough that I actually fell back to bow sneak attacks at a few points.

I don't really understand NPC mechanics yet and that's really bad for a squishier melee.

Giant swoop/knockback - seems to just happen, didn't seem blockable, or even to cause damage.
Stomp - basically cleave that hits 360?
Cleave - when do mobs actually start doing this? I assume fighting from behind is safe.
What else do things start doing to kill you in unsightly fashions?

Obviously you want to attack stuff that the tanks are on, use diplomacy (if you have the points. I'm heavily multiclassed), and such. I was considering grabbing a +4 or +5 shield after doing tangleroot elite and being one of the tanks, which would give me 2 or 3 ac over my standing Shield spell, combined with cat's grace and haste I'd be at 36 or 37. And I could start chugging barkskin potions I suppose. Would that be meaningful enough AC (and for how long?) to justify blowing most of the rest of my plat?

It's a hard hitting quest, but I still felt like I took a lot of healing on top of my own potions and wands.

[CSFurious]

do not attack first & take subtle backstabbing

you are an off-tank & have to always attack behind the front-line

you are a kill-stealer, i.e., you want to finish off the mobs

[sirgog]

Rogue playstyle depends a lot on race as well as build.

Dwarven rogues can take advantage of the insane HP Dwarves get and just play like a tank and survive everything thrown at them. Halfling rogues (and some others too) can get their AC so high that they are able to take swing after swing unharmed.

Other rogues need to use twitch play to dart in behind a foe, land three or four attacks, then step away.

[Eudimio]

Or you can hit so hard and have such good defenses that groups invite you to be the main tank. But that takes time and resources. Flavor-of-the-month guys won't likely achieve this.

[llevenbaxx]

Have a str based MC dwarven rogue with CE and the tactics lines. If/when I get aggro I can knock them down or stun them pretty dependably. I also will toss regular sunders in there, they almost always work too.

On my dex based MC human rogue I used my extra skill points to get a good bluff and diplo. Though the Imp feint feat is horribly underpowered in DDO Ive kept it and continue to use it in conjunction with diplo to quickly shed aggro.

Niether of them have a ton of hps but I usually do just fine as long as i keep my head in the game.

[CSFurious]

like this once & am currently leveling a re-roll while waiting for timers to run down

the re-roll has more str & less int

anyway, let me guess, you are a dwarf so you got lots of hitpoints to go into battle first

however, i think the biggest problem with this type of rogue is that you are losing a lot of sneak attack damage potential

these builds are definitely cool & very powerful, but, i think that the rogue-part of the build starts to get lost

Or you can hit so hard and have such good defenses that groups invite you to be the main tank. But that takes time and resources. Flavor-of-the-month guys won't likely achieve this.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Let someone else get agro first.
Attack from behind.
Carry heal pots in a very fast quickslot.
fearsome armor helps.

Past that, I'm still learning.

[Eudimio]

like this once & am currently leveling a re-roll while waiting for timers to run down

the re-roll has more str & less int

anyway, let me guess, you are a dwarf so you got lots of hitpoints to go into battle first

however, i think the biggest problem with this type of rogue is that you are losing a lot of sneak attack damage potential

these builds are definitely cool & very powerful, but, i think that the rogue-part of the build starts to get lost

Nope! 28 point-buy human. He's been my main for over two years. Over 200 raid completions (<40 reavers). Over 60 pieces of raid loot combined in bank and inventory.

The build is nearly-meaningless compared to the gear and tactics.

[CSFurious]

i personally do not like humans as rogues, but it sounds like you are the man

Nope! 28 point-buy human. He's been my main for over two years. Over 200 raid completions (<40 reavers). Over 60 pieces of raid loot combined in bank and inventory.

The build is nearly-meaningless compared to the gear and tactics.

[Eudimio]

i personally do not like humans as rogues, but it sounds like you are the man

Thanks. It's kind of hard to explain to people that the most important aspect of playing a rogue is time. My main was built at a time when humans made the best trapsmiths, and all rogues could evade in heavy armor. I hung up my +5 platemail a long time ago.

[CSFurious]

the very first character that i ever rolled was a rogue & i had no idea what i was doing

it actually took me a long time to learn how to play a rogue in an effective manner

Thanks. It's kind of hard to explain to people that the most important aspect of playing a rogue is time. My main was built at a time when humans made the best trapsmiths, and all rogues could evade in heavy armor. I hung up my +5 platemail a long time ago.

[Aeneas]

My main is my original 28pt build from march 2006 and he's a dwarven rogue that i still play really often. Those 4 points can eat me, i have too much invested to delete him, even if his int score is unbelievably gimped ( i didn't know any better at the time )