Pure Rogue - is it doable?

[Jaid314]

Assassin gets vorpal strikes as part of melee (IIRC).

assassin gets vorpal strikes as part of any sneak attack, melee or ranged.

thing is, ranged is usually a lot worse than melee for sneak attacks, because you can get a *lot* more attacks/second in melee most of the time, even when looking at the best ranged builds.

[Drekisen]

If you build and play it well.....pure rogues are plenty viable......they are quite fun as well.

I still think they should get the Hiding in Plain Sight feat free like rangers do though.....and Climb Walls

[AzB]

Rogues are one of the most unique classes in DDO; they really fit the "jack of all trades" label, at least while you're planning them. They can have massive dps with SA, insta kills with assassinate, trap, get ranged bonuses, be sneaky, and use umd. No other class gives you all those choices on buildup. You can really make some really interesting characters starting with a rogue class, and yes they're very viable at high levels and end game. Most parties these days don't wait for the trapper, (or bard, or cleric, or anyone for that matter) but you're still doing a great service to the party with the xp bonus that comes from getting the traps, even if the meta gamers all have evasion and just run through them. It's also fairly easy to do traps well without getting caught up in the min/max stuff, so you can create a toon that is primarily something else, but still trap well. The other aspect of trapping is that just about every other multiclass toon out there has a couple levels of rogue or arti so there is generally at least one other person in the party than can do traps too. It's nice to not be stuck with that role all the time, as it really gets kind of boring.

Assassin is quite fun, even in a party. Take lots of skill points in jump, and learn to jump over the fighters and the main group of bad guys, while hitting sneak in mid air and landing next to the casters. You can usually get two monsters per assassinate if they're standing close together, then fade back into the shadows to determine your next move. Assassinate does not break sneak, so you can generally kill and stay safe. Assassinate is a dc skill, and it is based on int and level, so assassins really need a lot of int and to stay pure to be effective.

Rogues get evasion by default, and evasion works best if you have a high reflex score. Evasion (and dodge) can mitigate a lot of aoe or melee damage, and really help to make your rogue a bit tougher since you have pretty poor hit die, ac, and prr.

I like umd on any toon, and with a rogue you can get enough umd for healing, (self or party) and be able to buff yourself with wands and scrolls, and even use some wands and scrolls for aoe damage. Ice storm wands for example are reasonably plentiful and work well. You can boost the damage further by using the wand and scroll enhancement line. This also boosts healing scrolls and wands as well so you can actually play party healer if the circumstances require it. For umd, don't dump cha.

If you concentrate on str/con you can also mix it up with the swordsmen fairly well too, especially if you take advantage of the sneak attack bonuses. You'll need to get good armor and weapons to be effective, and it will help if you are obsessive about hp because you will want every bit that you can get if you're going to melee. A high dex can help here, not only from the aforementioned evasion, but also with your ac. Keep in mind that even light armor sometimes has a max dex bonus, so match your armor to your dex for max ac.

On one of my rogue experiments, I had access to masters touch, which gave me proficiency in whatever weapon I had in hand. The spell is permanent until rest or death, so cast it once and forget about it. But in this case I tried using some of my arsenal of two handed swords from another toon as I have an enormous collection for every occasion. The interesting thing I noticed was that the damage was about the same (really better, but just because I had much better weapons in thf flavor to choose from) as it was from a Dex based rogue (with 14 str) using precision and the twf line. You can even assassinate with a thw and master's touch and although the animation is slower and needs to be timed differently, it also gives you more range... you don't have to be right next to the victim, and secondary victims are taken out even from quite far away. They really don't have to be standing right next to each other.

Anyway, I digress, the point is that rogues are very flexible if they are built from the get go to do what you want. And they are very effective for end game, many rogues do well on the kill counts, as well as being able to self/party heal, get traps, assassinate, and use tons of different magic items to some degree.

You just have to decide what strengths you want, and make sure you don't neglect the important aspects. Otherwise, you will get a rogue that is ok, but not great. And not much fun at later levels.

[dpadan17]

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=397353

Check out this build. Absolutely fun. Great dps and survivability. He's in fury with stealth twisted and I can't be happier.

715 hps before the fury buff and his armor is now the epic black hide armor.

If my ddo is working properly click the link in my signature with bllaak stabbath Very fun and deadly.

[Dmnqwk]

As a former PnP Thief (began 2nd ed, stopped 3rd) as well as an NWN Fighter/Thief and current DDO Rogue (2 past lives rogue, 1 fighter/rogue/monk which was really a rogue tank) I love the skill points and the ability to scroll stuff. With the changes however, a rogue is really one of the strongest non-caster solo machines out there.

If you're considering a path as an assassin:
Str 14
Dex 15 (with a +2 tome later for gtwf)
Con 14+
Int 14+
Wis 8 (DUMP STAT!)
Cha 8+

Before you supersize stats, this adds up to 26 points.
28 - Cha 10
32 - Int 16 Cha 10
34 - Int 16 Con 16
36 - Int 16 Con 16 Cha 10

When it comes to your skills:
Disable Device/Search are Int based
Hide/Move Silently/Open Lock are Dex based
Bluff/UMD are Cha based.
Other skills are useful and nice, but those are the most important ones for an assassin. Fairly even spread between dex int and cha. The dex-based ones tend to have lower DCs however than the others, so cha is not AS important as int or cha concerning skills (aka if you make a greensteel skills item, it wants to be charisma not dex).

Half Elf is one of the best races for an Assassin because...
They get Two bluffs!
I know I know, they also get +1 int from arti dil but it's the two bluffs which are great when you are mostly soloing.
For those who are unaware, bluff lets you do this:
You walk up to a hill giant... you screwed up and didn't stealth.... he goes to swing....
So you bluff him, hit stealth and assasinate him before his swing actually finishes (he'll be turned around so it wont matter if it does go off). And you chuckle to yourself "man im glad I had bluff."

Benefits:
Instant kills, high damage by rotating bluff/deception, Ability to make the foes your slaves with shadowdancer
Drawbacks:
If you see undead, just dont even bother hitting them. Make the hireling cleric heal them to death!