A little Talk about Rogues/multi classing/Skills/Solo

[DevilButcher]

HI

What to give my two-cents about rogues, multi classing and Skills.
I put a lot of thought into my rogue and the skill to balance them and want to make some personal points.

I get tired when people tell me “switch out Bluff, Spots and get skill X or Y.”
Let me explain a little why.

There is three core rogue skill: Search, Disable Device, and Open Locks.
- These skills are what I’ll call the “core rogue party skills”. If not good at them you better have spells or DPS. Either way, your usefulness to a party as a rogue is dwindled.

Now these are what I’ll label as the “solo rogue skill”. They are; bluff, hide, move silently, spot.
-these skills only benefit the rogue for the most part and almost useless to benefit the party. So most multi-class rogues choose to dump them to be able to keep up core rogue party skills. They are the tools that work together to solo a map that normally takes party’s of four to do. If you don’t like solo and always want to rely on a party don’t get them, Simple. If you see them in my build, it’s not a mistake.

Note: I don’t want to go and not mention the usefulness of Use Magic Device and Diplomacy and a few others rogue skill but they do not account to the main point of this discussion. So I’m not addressing them farther for now.

The next problem I see in builds is too much “End Game Thinking”.
You will see a multi-class rogue’s character sheet boast max core rogue skill lvl20, but there’s a painful gap at lvl 2~6, or even 4~12. When they have sub-par core rogue party skill, again making them DPS toons, useless if a quest needs a rogue for hard traps or chest/doors.

Yes you can just over power a quest or have a large bank of healing to finish a wipe quest alone or to solo. I’m not going to go into the techniques of soloing with stealth and dirty fighting styles, unless asked but there’re a few guides with tips and tricks to pull off getting the advantage if you search.

[Entelech]

That's certainly...an opinion.

You claim to be annoyed when back-seat drivers tell you how to build your character and spend your skill points, so you promptly post here to tell other players how to spend their skill points? Seems a bit strange to me.

[Kinesthetic]

HI

What to give my two-cents about rogues, multi classing and Skills.
I put a lot of thought into my rogue and the skill to balance them and want to make some personal points.

I get tired when people tell me “switch out Bluff, Spots and get skill X or Y.”
Let me explain a little why.

There is three core rogue skill: Search, Disable Device, and Open Locks.
- These skills are what I’ll call the “core rogue party skills”. If not good at them you better have spells or DPS. Either way, your usefulness to a party as a rogue is dwindled.

Now these are what I’ll label as the “solo rogue skill”. They are; bluff, hide, move silently, spot.
-these skills only benefit the rogue for the most part and almost useless to benefit the party. So most multi-class rogues choose to dump them to be able to keep up core rogue party skills. They are the tools that work together to solo a map that normally takes party’s of four to do. If you don’t like solo and always want to rely on a party don’t get them, Simple. If you see them in my build, it’s not a mistake.

Note: I don’t want to go and not mention the usefulness of Use Magic Device and Diplomacy and a few others rogue skill but they do not account to the main point of this discussion. So I’m not addressing them farther for now.

The next problem I see in builds is too much “End Game Thinking”.
You will see a multi-class rogue’s character sheet boast max core rogue skill lvl20, but there’s a painful gap at lvl 2~6, or even 4~12. When they have sub-par core rogue party skill, again making them DPS toons, useless if a quest needs a rogue for hard traps or chest/doors.

Yes you can just over power a quest or have a large bank of healing to finish a wipe quest alone or to solo. I’m not going to go into the techniques of soloing with stealth and dirty fighting styles, unless asked but there’re a few guides with tips and tricks to pull off getting the advantage if you search.

Who what when and where?

So when you rolling your first rogue?

[DevilButcher]

That's certainly...an opinion.

You claim to be annoyed when back-seat drivers tell you how to build your character and spend your skill points, so you promptly post here to tell other players how to spend their skill points? Seems a bit strange to me.

lol yes, but this is my OP so Im not forcing my skill choices on anyone elses playstyle. Still not taking away from the fact I wanted to adress.

Thank for your input, it was helpful...

[khaldan]

The only 'gap' in low level rogue skills is generally in OL, where the difference between 4 and 7 ranks is so minimal as to be unnoticeable. What builds are you finding this problem in?

[DevilButcher]

Who what when and where?

So when you rolling your first rogue?

Does it matter, it’s the principle. I read alot on forums to learn from here and I wanted to add to it.
But I wanted to talk about the skills, point out something alot of people never care to learn.

[DevilButcher]

The only 'gap' in low level rogue skills is generally in OL, where the difference between 4 and 7 ranks is so minimal as to be unnoticeable. What builds are you finding this problem in?

yes it a good point you can get away with a lower OL and wait a bit to open a lock. but that's one of the only skills you can keep tring till you get it right. Most other skills like search you be stuck waiting 3 lvl longer before you can find that trap.
Or in the case of the spot skill you will be stuck not able to sneak around or target a hidden patrol mob with out a clickie of some kind.

[Kinesthetic]

yes It A Good Point You Can Get Away With A Lower Ol And Wait A Bit To Open A Lock. But That's One Of The Only Skills You Can Keep Tring Till You Get It Right. Most Other Skills Like Search You Be Stuck Waiting 3 Lvl Longer Before You Can Find That Trap.
Or In The Case Of The Spot Skill You Will Be Stuck Not Able To Sneak Around Or Target A Hidden Patrol Mob With Out A Clickie Of Some Kind.

Woooooosh!

[Winter_storm]

These are the skills (importance by order) preferred to me but not absolute. Every one has a different order and preference and would be interested to the posts, there's always something I don't know.

UMD goes without saying (very important)

Balance keeps me beating on worfs, air elementals, and giants with less chances of being thrown around, tripped, or beat down. Or at least stand up faster.

Move silently and Hide lets you have more chances to assassinate without notice and also in the demon sands quests (like wiz-king), allows me to sneak upstairs and disable traps without notice.

Search is extremely useful without it you could not find hidden doors (even you know its there) or trap boxes (especially moving ones)

Open Locks and Disable traps goes without saying

Repair helps help Warforged (mostly only good if you are one)

Heal helps you restore HP better and revive unconscious party members.

Bluff and Diplomacy I haven't really have experience in both to say which is preferred. Do know that the diplomacy points the monster to other party members and bluff points off the whole party according to what is read.

Tumble only put one 1 point here but some people live by it.

Spot is good when you're new to a quest but even then there's always someone that knows where everything is.

Swim? other than the need to swim faster? A air bottle or underwater item will take care of this.

[DevilButcher]

Woooooosh!

what you want me to go a pull some Forums for you prove the point that there are build that build end game wise? No.

Im not going to troll this page for you buddy

The OP what I wanted to note here.

[Kinesthetic]

what you want me to go a pull some Forums for you prove the point that there build end game wise? No.

Im not going to troll this page for you buddy

Or we want you to prove your point. Like adults you know.

Remember in highschool when you could proclaim anything without having to back it up?

Yeah, do the opposite of that.

The burden of proof, "buddy".

[Rameses]

Solo. Skills. Multi-classing.

All these things are easily covered by keeping your skills balanced.

DD and Search: should always be max'd out.
OL: has some give but should be within 4 points.
UMD: should always be max'd out.
Diplo: handy in a group situtation or to shuck agro onto a summoned pet.
Bluff: IMO this is a waste. Get yourself Deception weapons: you'll have better results.
Spot: there is nothing wrong in keeping this skill max'd but most don't.
Heal: Not a big fan of putting skill points into this
Repair: same as heal.

These are my thoughts about what a Rogue should really concern themselves with. But then I play my Rogue as a pure Tank.

I am, Rameses!

[shablala]

HI

What to give my two-cents about rogues, multi classing and Skills.
I put a lot of thought into my rogue and the skill to balance them and want to make some personal points.

I get tired when people tell me “switch out Bluff, Spots and get skill X or Y.”
Let me explain a little why.

There is three core rogue skill: Search, Disable Device, and Open Locks.
- These skills are what I’ll call the “core rogue party skills”. If not good at them you better have spells or DPS. Either way, your usefulness to a party as a rogue is dwindled.

Now these are what I’ll label as the “solo rogue skill”. They are; bluff, hide, move silently, spot.
-these skills only benefit the rogue for the most part and almost useless to benefit the party. So most multi-class rogues choose to dump them to be able to keep up core rogue party skills. They are the tools that work together to solo a map that normally takes party’s of four to do. If you don’t like solo and always want to rely on a party don’t get them, Simple. If you see them in my build, it’s not a mistake.

Note: I don’t want to go and not mention the usefulness of Use Magic Device and Diplomacy and a few others rogue skill but they do not account to the main point of this discussion. So I’m not addressing them farther for now.

The next problem I see in builds is too much “End Game Thinking”.
You will see a multi-class rogue’s character sheet boast max core rogue skill lvl20, but there’s a painful gap at lvl 2~6, or even 4~12. When they have sub-par core rogue party skill, again making them DPS toons, useless if a quest needs a rogue for hard traps or chest/doors.

Yes you can just over power a quest or have a large bank of healing to finish a wipe quest alone or to solo. I’m not going to go into the techniques of soloing with stealth and dirty fighting styles, unless asked but there’re a few guides with tips and tricks to pull off getting the advantage if you search.

That will teach me to search for other posts by the OP before I waste my breath on another thread attempting to give some advice.

Learning from my mistake, I will refrain from addressing every false assumption you make about the rogue class, which is pretty much everything. This leads to my conclusion that you really have no idea what the rogue class is about or how it should be played/built. Hopefully you will have the good sense to actually read and learn from the countless threads of veteran players who Capped, TRed, Epiced the rogue class in all its shapes and sizes before you even started playing.

[Ystradmynach]

Spot is good when you're new to a quest but even then there's always someone that knows where everything is..

You aren't going to see hidden enemies without a decent spot score, knowing where your enemies are will most likely save your life on more than one occasion. Finding traps without blundering into them, locating trap boxes and finding secret doors without memorizing ~250 dungeon layouts or having to constantly ask others is a nice secondary benefit.

Honestly, I just couldn't see building a rogue without a decent spot skill, with eight or more skill slots I just don't understand what else a rogue would spend his points on that would preclude seeing where he is going.

[wax_on_wax_off]

I think i can see partly where the OP is coming from.

From levels 5-11 or so it is really difficult for a rogue to be able to do elite traps without significant investment. In my experience, you pretty much need the best disable/search item for your level, +3 to +5 tools, foxs cunning, a few APs invested into search/disable to be able to do some of the elite traps in that level range which a lot of new rogues won't.

The simplest option for a rogue is to simply avoid elite quests in that level range. Another option is spec'ing to mechanic until level 12 for those acrobat and assassin builds.

As far as skills go.
Search: max, obviously
Disable device: max, obviously
UMD: max, obviously
Open lock: 10 ranks at level 20 is fine to do any lock I came across with my 14 dexterity tempest ranger
Spot: very important for new players and for assassins, no good bumping into people while stealthed
Diplomacy: possibly useful, best to just learn to manage your aggro
Bluff: I've heard conflicting reports. Importantly, apparently while stealthed you can bluff a mob from a distance and pull it away from its buddies for a bit of one on one time with you and/or your party. This works in epic afaik.
Balance: at least 1/2 ranks should go in here unless you're an acrobat imo
Haggle: Leftover skill points?
Jump: you should be on 40 after a jump spell from a friendly arcane at least, put more if you solo a lot
Hide: Great for solo or assassin builds, situational uses otherwise
Move Silently: See hide, better than hide as this + invisibility/camo/mass camo = stealth, .: don't need hide
Repair: LOL, no way. I suppose a WF rogue might like this.
Tumble: at least 1 rank, if i can fit it id go for more, flips are cool and it's good to be able to fall without taking damage, much quicker than featherfall

In conclusion,
1. EVERY rogue should be able to do traps and locks from levels 1-20.
2. Every rogue should be able to use a raise dead scroll before level 20.
3. Every melee rogue should start with at least 12 strength to be able to take power attack when they get a +1 strength tome so that they can do damage against undead/slimes/constructs etc. Damage boost is good for this too.
4. Every rogue is a DPS character, no party needs a dedicated trap monkey, 99% of quests can be done without a rogue (if not all of them, i can't think of one that's for sure.)
5. Imo, like every ranged DPS build, mechanic should be done as a twink build with a nice holy of PG repeater bow or something similar, if you don't have resources to properly outfit your rogue stick to acrobat or assassin, melee builds are heaps easier to make effective.

[diamabel]

...
4. Every rogue is a DPS character, no party needs a dedicated trap monkey, 99% of quests can be done without a rogue (if not all of them, i can't think of one that's for sure.)
...

A few necropolis quests come to mind. Tomb of the Tormented and one of the level 8 tombs (the one with > 15 traps).

Anyway it depends on the specific rogue build. There exist some who go with only 8 or 10 intelligence. Even if they max the vital skills it's best to look for someone else for trapsmithing (especially on elite difficulty).

[Calebro]

That will teach me to search for other posts by the OP before I waste my breath on another thread attempting to give some advice.

Learning from my mistake, I will refrain from addressing every false assumption you make about the rogue class, which is pretty much everything. This leads to my conclusion that you really have no idea what the rogue class is about or how it should be played/built. Hopefully you will have the good sense to actually read and learn from the countless threads of veteran players who Capped, TRed, Epiced the rogue class in all its shapes and sizes before you even started playing.

Why is it such a problem for you to let him play how he wants to? He obviously has a different playstyle than you do, and wants X, Y and Z in his build, while you're trying to tell him why A, B and C are better.
Well maybe they aren't better for HIM!

Maybe he'll eventually decide that you were correct, and that he wants A, B and C instead, but that isn't for you to decide.

It's just like in another thread where someone claimed to want a Finesse sneak attack focused trapmonkey DPS build, and someone came along and linked a pure Str based monk, claiming "You'll thank me later."
Ummmm...... no he probably won't, because that's not what HE WANTED!

[Kinesthetic]

Why is it such a problem for you to let him play how he wants to? He obviously has a different playstyle than you do, and wants X, Y and Z in his build, while you're trying to tell him why A, B and C are better.
Well maybe they aren't better for HIM!

Maybe he'll eventually decide that you were correct, and that he wants A, B and C instead, but that isn't for you to decide.

It's just like in another thread where someone claimed to want a Finesse sneak attack focused trapmonkey DPS build, and someone came along and linked a pure Str based monk, claiming "You'll thank me later."
Ummmm...... no he probably won't, because that's not what HE WANTED!

Am I the only one that sees the contradiction here?

OP wants 3 core "rogue skills" blah blah blah <insert 9 year old philosophy> and goes ahead and posts a build. Let me dissect it for you.

He says we focus too much on end-game, then goes ahead and grabs 6 monk levels. His 3 "core skills" are going to be mediocre if not useless for the trap DC scaling of those levels and probably a while beyond too. So he surely doesn't have traps to bring to the table even at end-game, he's gonna be a sub-par trapster(that he needs 16 int to compensate for part of it). According to him, a situation where this would be acceptable is with spells or DPS.

But he doesn't have that. Why? Because he doesn't have weapon finesse and 4 times toughness(apparently to compensate for rolling with 8 con).

More? No diplomacy, it's not a preference it's not a luxury, if you have buff and no diplomacy, you're not a DPS. Hell any DPS would be uneasy in your presence.

I'm not even delving further into that mishmash of things that "sounds good according to the description" that he picked. 2 DRAGONMARK BFTDYFTDBYTYTRDBYDYTDYBYDFTY

No one is telling him what to do, but if you're gonna post your build you ARE going to be criticized. What else were you trying to accomplish in the first place?

You can't take criticism? Shut the hell up.

He obviously never rolled a rogue, how would he know his playstyle? You can keep him, I don't want him in any of my parties.

Oh and I'm just gonna leave this here.

I'm assuming that this was in response to my post instead of his. He didn't link a build for you to check out.
And you looked at the wrong build in that thread. Below the one you described, posted by myself.

And to no Bluff: Choose a skill to replace it with....

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

[Calebro]

Reading comprehension FTW. I said "like another thread", meaning not that one.

The problem comes when people attempt to change the basic premise/concept of what the person wants because they think it's better.
Sure, it may be better for some, it may even be better for most, but you can't assume it's better for everyone. If someone requests a certain type of build that includes things that you don't think are effective, how can you say that they won't be effective in someone else's hands?

Bluff, which is the skill that started this all, has very few uses. No one is denying that. But claiming that it's useless only applies to the claimant's style. The OP wants Bluff for it's ability to pull single targets while running solo, rather than shooting something and pulling an entire room.
It's two different styles of play that require two different skill sets, so someone attempting to change his mind on Bluff only shows that this person doesn't understand what he wants from the build at all.
Since they don't understand what he wants, they try to change the concept entirely.

Like I said in the other thread, people are too busy trying to be heard that they stop listening.

His build had flaws, so attempt to rectify the errors instead of changing the concept to how you would play it.

The build I posted at the end of that thread: Would I play it? No.
Is it right for him? Hopefully.

[Kinesthetic]

Reading comprehension FTW. I said "like another thread", meaning not that one.

The problem comes when people attempt to change the basic premise/concept of what the person wants because they think it's better.
Sure, it may be better for some, it may even be better for most, but you can't assume it's better for everyone. If someone requests a certain type of build that includes things that you don't think are effective, how can you say that they won't be effective in someone else's hands?

Bluff, which is the skill that started this all, has very few uses. No one is denying that. But claiming that it's useless only applies to the claimant's style. The OP wants Bluff for it's ability to pull single targets while running solo, rather than shooting something and pulling an entire room.
It's two different styles of play that require two different skill sets, so someone attempting to change his mind on Bluff only shows that this person doesn't understand what he wants from the build at all.
Since they don't understand what he wants, they try to change the concept entirely.

Like I said in the other thread, people are too busy trying to be heard that they stop listening.

His build had flaws, so attempt to rectify the errors instead of changing the concept to how you would play it.

The build I posted at the end of that thread: Would I play it? No.
Is it right for him? Hopefully.

You just made a straw-man out of my whole post.

I never even mentioned anything about that "another thread" you're rambling about.

But by deduction, my reading comprehension is bad and not yours

OH GOD THIS HURTS!