expectations of a rogue for epics

[Quikster]

I have tanked on epics with my fvs with 452 hit points in ToD, VoD, Epic Chronoscope and I've never wished I had more HP. As a matter of fact the Valiance build has 322 hit points and he solo'ed VoD, there's absolutely no reason you should -require- more HP.

sorry but you have absolutely no clue what you are talking about and its very evident from this post

[neclon]

Incorrect, due to the fact that SA is not multiplied on a crit, in a group with stunning blow or hold monster the Rogue will in fact be doing the least DPS out of the melee toons.

Your numbers support a big gap with a build optimized for dps (blitz?). But what about exploiter builds, paladins? Pure rangers? Is the rogue really doing less than all of those non-dps optimized builds?

[Quikster]

Your numbers support a big gap with a build optimized for dps (blitz?). But what about exploiter builds, paladins? Pure rangers? Is the rogue really doing less than all of those non-dps optimized builds?

Any melee built for dps can contribute. Epics are not so hard that they need to have optimized builds only. The more dps that they can contribute the smoother the run will likely be all other factors being equal.

[karnokvolrath]

sorry but you have absolutely no clue what you are talking about and its very evident from this post

This. +1

Consumer great post nice breakkdown +1

Ben your beating a dead horse, or at least an ignorant one (least its entertaining). +1

This whole thread made me smile, thought id show some love.

OH and Royals, keep posting, you amaze me.

My battle caster has just barely under 450 and ill tell you right now hands down he has no place meleeing in epic...period.

[nivarch]

On a different note from all the previous messages.

You're talking of epic ... you should do a lot of raids before you can start epic. Be ready to spend around 1 Month farming VoD/Shroud/Reaver's whenever they are off from cooldown. In epic, a tier 3 GS weapon (and maybe a GS hp item) are almost mandatory.

Not saying you can't run epic without those, but they will make you feel less of a burden.

I'd suggest raising another toon when raids are on cooldown, so you can increase the speed you'll get larges for your GS items.
You should also start the tedious acquisition process of boots for ToD and work on a good DT armor.

[Royalties]

sorry but you have absolutely no clue what you are talking about and its very evident from this post

Well care to explain rather than making a blanket statement?

[Lifespawn]

I have tanked on epics with my fvs with 452 hit points in ToD, VoD, Epic Chronoscope and I've never wished I had more HP. As a matter of fact the Valiance build has 322 hit points and he solo'ed VoD, there's absolutely no reason you should -require- more HP.

maybe the fact that there is no epic vod or tod could have something to do with the fact none of us think you know what your talking about.

As for tanking Tod even on normal 477 is a 1 shot with a failed disintegrate so we know

U=clueless

[Quikster]

Well care to explain rather than making a blanket statement?

There is a ton of reasons, but most you will learn by playing more, so let me just say these few things.

A. A self healing fvs or cleric is not any front line melee. Are there builds and players that can get away playing at end game with < 500 hp? Sure. But when you (understood you) are talking about most players/endgame/frontline melee many dont have evasion, superior saves in all three categories, and the ability to hit one button and heal to full. The difference between a typical front line melee and a melee spec'd fvs, or a BB specd fvs or cleric are night and day in terms of survivability. Night and day.


B. Tanking in tod with <550 hitpoints is basically a no no, unless there is absolutely nobody better to do the job. Its been done plenty, it will be done again. Heck I did it at lvl 18 with no boots when the raid was new. But to do it on a consistent basis is simply asking for trouble.

C. Meleeing against epic liliat with that few hitpoints, and with no evasion or with evasion and a poor reflex save, is such a burden on the healers.

D. A failed save in Epic choro on several of the aoe attacks can land for more than 500 points easily.

E. Failed saves on several of the bases in von 6 can get you dead quick with that few hitpoints, not near as important against the dragon however.

F. Wiz king used to disintegrate and horrid wilting, failing either of those saves is an invitation to death with that few hitpoints.

G. Traps in elite ToD part 1 can be really nasty to non reflex based builds. Getting caught in the wrong position when a boss decides to toss you across the room may force 3 or more saves to be made. Even at 1/2 damage there is a good chance most melee with <500 hitpoints, and many with >500 hitpoints, are going to end up dead.

You quoted a build with super ac, super self healing, soloing a raid thats been out for years. None of the damage on normal in that raid is near as devastating as some of the attacks ive mentioned here.

The whole horoth thing is really a non issue because front line melee dont have to be tanks. However if he turns on someone that doesnt have a decent hitpoint pool, or the tank dies and he takes the next on the agro list, then that factor comes into play. On elite his dots tick for more, his melee attacks hit harder, and he gets an extra swing in his animation. Couple taht with his spell damage, blashphemy stun chance, and teh ever present disintegrate that can do plenty more than 500 points of damage on a 1, and you have a recipe for disaster.

As someone who has tanked/off tanked/barded/healed/castered/dps'd/and piked a ton of raids at end game on all difficulties, if you dont want to find yourself as a stone in someones pocket as a front line melee, most builds would be well served to get more than 500 hitpoints.

So Ill repeat, having less than 500 hitpoints is not ok at endgame for any front line melee. Note that this statement doesnt mean that all front line melee have to have more than 500 hitpoints, but that it isnt ok for all front line melee to have less than 500 hitpoints.

[pharky]

hp is never enough, i have 511 hp on my rogue and i find that little too. the more hp you have, the less times healers have to heal you because their mass heals will probably hit everyone for 500-600. this helps cut down resources in raids, especially for edq.

but anyway using diplomacy and turning aggro onto yr caster or healer is not really a good method of avoiding damage, its better to have radiance/grab guards and take the damage yourself, if your hp is high, the healer will be able to react and heal you if you are taking too much damage. of course the ideal situation is that the rogue doesn't get any aggro, but that doesn't always happen.

[bendover]

hp is never enough, i have 511 hp on my rogue and i find that little too. the more hp you have, the less times healers have to heal you because their mass heals will probably hit everyone for 500-600. this helps cut down resources in raids, especially for edq.

but anyway using diplomacy and turning aggro onto yr caster or healer is not really a good method of avoiding damage, its better to have radiance/grab guards and take the damage yourself, if your hp is high, the healer will be able to react and heal you if you are taking too much damage. of course the ideal situation is that the rogue doesn't get any aggro, but that doesn't always happen.

This is it. I'd +1 if I could, but regardless that's gonna fall onto deaf ears on the one that has decided to argue with a handful of vets on here.

[sirgog]

I have tanked on epics with my fvs with 452 hit points in ToD, VoD, Epic Chronoscope and I've never wished I had more HP. As a matter of fact the Valiance build has 322 hit points and he solo'ed VoD, there's absolutely no reason you should -require- more HP.

Uh - that's VoD. Out of every raid in the game, it's the one where AC is best and HP are least important, and the one where the boss doesn't have a single attack that can do 150 damage, even without fortification his melee crits do only 120 (plus curse) on Normal.

Anyone with under 400hp isn't suited for Epics yet, just as anyone without 100% fortification isn't suited for running Dueragar quests at level. There's too much unpredictable melee damage, too many spells like Horrid Wilting that almost one-shot you, and too many spells like Disintegrate and Meteor Swarm that actually will one-shot you.

Melees in Epics need to be able to survive the time that the healer's Heal spell is on cooldown. And Displacement, while helpful, isn't reliable enough to stay alive.


I expect the following from a rogue in Epics:

1) 400+ hp, preferably 450. These aren't easy benchmarks for the class to hit, unfortunately, especially for the races with a Con penalty.

2) 53 Search (with all available buffs) if the quest has nasty traps. That gets Chains of Flame, and IIRC it gets most other important traps.

3) Mid-range boss DPS and very high trash DPS (or the other way around, depending upon build and spec). Boss DPS suffers if rogues don't have Tharne's Goggles or some replacement - the class has quite low To-Hit.

4) The ability to use Heal and Raise Dead scrolls (preferably no-fail, but 32+ UMD is OK)



Some rogues bring other things to the table too - extremely high burst AC with intimidate, sustained AC and DR in some WF builds, Radiance or Earthgrab, and more.

[AMDarkwolf]

Little confused here.

How am I doing it so 'right' and I don't meet anyone's 'benchmark' ?

my rog (mnk/rog split) has 390. I do epics. Just fine. usually never die. Hes str build, pulls agro quite often. I do fine.

Monk has 417 total(WITH greensteel HP). Again, no issues. Yes I HAVE been one shot by a disint now and again, it happens, but not enough to classify either of my toons 'a horrible fail that will fail your run'

I think, really, that your a little too 'pro' with your 'must haves' A smart player is always better than a decked out 3 yr old 'has everything in game' toon.

[Quikster]

Little confused here.

How am I doing it so 'right' and I don't meet anyone's 'benchmark' ?

my rog (mnk/rog split) has 390. I do epics. Just fine. usually never die. Hes str build, pulls agro quite often. I do fine.

Monk has 417 total(WITH greensteel HP). Again, no issues. Yes I HAVE been one shot by a disint now and again, it happens, but not enough to classify either of my toons 'a horrible fail that will fail your run'

I think, really, that your a little too 'pro' with your 'must haves' A smart player is always better than a decked out 3 yr old 'has everything in game' toon.

2 alts with imp evasion, and right at the numbers everyone's talking about, yeah not sure your argument applies, thx for playing though.

[Freeman]

Little confused here.

How am I doing it so 'right' and I don't meet anyone's 'benchmark' ?

my rog (mnk/rog split) has 390. I do epics. Just fine. usually never die. Hes str build, pulls agro quite often. I do fine.

Monk has 417 total(WITH greensteel HP). Again, no issues. Yes I HAVE been one shot by a disint now and again, it happens, but not enough to classify either of my toons 'a horrible fail that will fail your run'

I think, really, that your a little too 'pro' with your 'must haves' A smart player is always better than a decked out 3 yr old 'has everything in game' toon.

I think the confusion comes from the definition of "front-line" melee. To me, at least, that means a melee character that can take and hold aggro when needed. Then there are the secondary melee characters, that can contribute a significant amount of DPS, but really aren't designed to hold aggro because of lower hitpoints. In general, the front line melee characters are your fighters, barbs, and paladins, while rangers, monks, rogues, and bards are the secondary. Yes, you can build a front-line melee out of any class, but the lower the hit die, the harder it gets.(I'd trust an unknown barbarian to tank a raid boss a lot faster than I'd trust an unknown rogue) This really only matters against mobs with high damage output, not your typical trash mob. At end-game, I would say 400hp is the minimum to have if you plan on meleeing nearly anything. If you plan on having much aggro, that number goes up. Your hp totals are fine for a secondary melee character.(And high AC can mitigate SOME hitpoints, although that gets much more difficult in epic) I just wouldn't plan on tanking Horoth like that.

[bendover]

Don't suck and you won't die. You're not suppose to be hit as a rogue. Diplomacy + radience and aggro management, learn to use it. The only reason you should die is because you have no crowd control or you're not a good rogue.

Forgot your -1 for being rude.

[AMDarkwolf]

2 alts with imp evasion, and right at the numbers everyone's talking about, yeah not sure your argument applies, thx for playing though.

Ok... doesn't clear things up much....

I think the confusion comes from the definition of "front-line" melee. To me, at least, that means a melee character that can take and hold aggro when needed. Then there are the secondary melee characters, that can contribute a significant amount of DPS, but really aren't designed to hold aggro because of lower hitpoints. In general, the front line melee characters are your fighters, barbs, and paladins, while rangers, monks, rogues, and bards are the secondary. Yes, you can build a front-line melee out of any class, but the lower the hit die, the harder it gets.(I'd trust an unknown barbarian to tank a raid boss a lot faster than I'd trust an unknown rogue) This really only matters against mobs with high damage output, not your typical trash mob. At end-game, I would say 400hp is the minimum to have if you plan on meleeing nearly anything. If you plan on having much aggro, that number goes up. Your hp totals are fine for a secondary melee character.(And high AC can mitigate SOME hitpoints, although that gets much more difficult in epic) I just wouldn't plan on tanking Horoth like that.

But this does. Thank you. +1 for a decent way of explaining it WITHOUT sounding like a pro-elite douchbag ****.

[Quikster]

Ok... doesn't clear things up much....




But this does. Thank you. +1 for a decent way of explaining it WITHOUT sounding like a pro-elite douchbag ****.

After reading the thread again sounds like youre referring to me.

I would also love to know what epics you are so successful at, because many of the epics would tear up <400 hitpoints unless you are staying out of the fight.

[AMDarkwolf]

lol why would you ask, you have gone with me many times.

DQ, AtDQ, OOB, Wizking, chains. Mostly, at this point, demonsands. Can count devils assault aswell, although I find that much easier than chains/wizking.

In each instance, Im right there, in the front lines, taking licks, but the point is you do not 'stand toe to toe' with something unless your built for it. You find other ways. Example being in wizking, you use the casters firewalls to build hate, or halt undead scrolls, and in every epic cc is heavily used. Frontline fighter is NOT 'tank' - Thats something else. Frontline fighter si the guys out in front who deal the damage as fast as possible to bring the threats down quick.

Also, idk how u managed to completely derail the thread, but 'rogue' is not frontline fighter. They are (IMO) the top dpsers but not the ones taking the licks.(Even though mine does pull agro often enough)

[Quikster]

lol why would you ask, you have gone with me many times.

DQ, AtDQ, OOB, Wizking, chains. Mostly, at this point, demonsands. Can count devils assault aswell, although I find that much easier than chains/wizking.

In each instance, Im right there, in the front lines, taking licks, but the point is you do not 'stand toe to toe' with something unless your built for it. You find other ways. Example being in wizking, you use the casters firewalls to build hate, or halt undead scrolls, and in every epic cc is heavily used. Frontline fighter is NOT 'tank' - Thats something else. Frontline fighter si the guys out in front who deal the damage as fast as possible to bring the threats down quick.

Also, idk how u managed to completely derail the thread, but 'rogue' is not frontline fighter. They are (IMO) the top dpsers but not the ones taking the licks.(Even though mine does pull agro often enough)

If you read the thread you will see that I didnt completely derail it. I had a couple posts referring to a specific poster, whom I was trying to discredit.

No I havent run a bunch of epics with you, which is why I ask. Matter of fact, im not sure Ive ever run even a single epic with you. After you made a whole group recall out of the sub so Gramoul would spawn as an easier mob, I started avoiding groups with you.

I dont believe you are meleeing liliat or epic Raiyum without dying at 390 hp, unless the group is using an intimitank.

I never, ever stated that a rog was a frontline melee, though it could be if build for it.

[AMDarkwolf]

If you read the thread you will see that I didnt completely derail it. I had a couple posts referring to a specific poster, whom I was trying to discredit.

No I havent run a bunch of epics with you, which is why I ask. Matter of fact, im not sure Ive ever run even a single epic with you. After you made a whole group recall out of the sub so Gramoul would spawn as an easier mob, I started avoiding groups with you.

I dont believe you are meleeing liliat or epic Raiyum without dying at 390 hp, unless the group is using an intimitank.

I never, ever stated that a rog was a frontline melee, though it could be if build for it.

LMAO what? Recalled out of sub(which is raid area, which doesn't scale mobs hp depending on group size...) to make it an easier mob? Really? LOL

Why do you pro-elite fools keep mistaken me for some other person. I am Malicai or Atmadarkwolf. NOBODY else. That(The above) Did not happen, and if it did, it was not me. STOP MISTAKING me for someone else. (Yes this keeps happening, people claiming i do some random silly thing ages ago which I never did...lol)