The Ultimate Class Discussion Guide

[Keighn]

So, I was sitting around pondering about the various rogues in the game. What makes you so good? How can one excel. Surely The Old Rogue Guide is at least a little outdated. It is pretty rare to find the old standbye magic items that many of the older players cherish. There's also a lot of new items and abilities that may trump the old. Let's hear about your tactics and how you believe a rogue should be played.

Edit ---- changed the title as too many of these I made on a hunch. Discuss any of the classes here.

[Flamesoffire]

Honestly. Be thing to do as a rogue, Is know your limits. Your hp is on the lower side of the scale. Your DPS may be a bit nuts but even with dual vamps, Your not always gaining enough HP. And your MR isn't going to ever really rival any other class. Sides like monks. In the end mostly depends on your weapon imo. If your SS's then find a good combo of tints. Don't ALWAYS use dual vamps. Personally, My favorite combo is a runed and vamp. Mix it up with gouge and BAM! Mostly perma-blinded monster. Enchants do help as well. Should mix that up a bit as well. Less you love dual aep's like i do. As for Foils and Ranged. I personally use a orb. At 376 get almost 100 extra HP from a Orb of health. Which is more useful to me then any shield. Unless its a magic shield thats +100 str and 900 dex or so. Then MAYBE. Might be more useful. As for those. Stick to what helps most. If a BR ijo rapier helps less then a vamp rapier +2. Do the vamp. Doesnt matter what one is better. If the vamp helps you stay alive and kill faster. Stick with it till you can effectively kill with the BR ijo. Same with ranged.


In the end. Know what you can and cannot do. Dont ALWAYS focus on DPS. Focus on what keeps you alive (Thus why i use a runed and vamp instead of dual vamps. Though dual vamps give more HP, The perma blind saves on pots and less loss hp wise). Know where you hunt and dont run around like a hyped up 5 year old thinking "OH I CAN HIDE AND BACKSTAB! TEHEHEHE I CAN DO ANYTHING!" Or "I R USE MACHETE! I CAN FIGHT ANYTHING" and also, Dont be one of those guys who back stabs, Runs, Hides, and repeats that for ages. Its not as helpful as you think. Mainly in a party. Rogues aren't the easiest in the beginning. But out of all the classes, Personally always found a rogue to be much more fun. Why else would i have a 376 rogue compared to my next strongest being a 162 monk. =p Once you know how to work you own rogue, Things will work themselves out. Just have to play with everything you get your hands on and see how things work best for you. Just cant give up early on cause staying alive is a pain. In the end, Its worth it. Ever got a question or two. Ill answer it with however i do things. If that dont help. Im sure theres other rogues who can hopefully answer in a way that better fits you.

[Keighn]

How important is it to keep to the ratio? 3:1 dex/str or w/e it is? I won't ask about dual classing with a priest as I have a separate thread I started for that. Seems to me though that if you're a human rogue you could almost get away with mani spam in lieu of vamp weapons. I do like aep and it used to be that aep/xj was the grand comination. It seems less so now; probably only really needed to break def if you're lower. I have found a new respect for clone and its importance vs high end mobs while soloing. On ng it is a great distraction when chopping up the blood queen.

Machetes, they must be an ok weapon for solitary backstabs vs singular mobs. I'd probably consider them almost one shots. In fact I almsot think it would be an ok strategy in some situations to have one equipped for the backstab then hotkey back to a faster weapon after the attack. Generally I try not to play a rogue like a fighter even though their raw dual speed outclasses the others in hand to hand. Upper end rogues, I have none but I've watched a few and they do seem to be quick with the killing.

[Flamesoffire]

How important is it to keep to the ratio? 3:1 dex/str or w/e it is? I won't ask about dual classing with a priest as I have a separate thread I started for that. Seems to me though that if you're a human rogue you could almost get away with mani spam in lieu of vamp weapons. I do like aep and it used to be that aep/xj was the grand comination. It seems less so now; probably only really needed to break def if you're lower. I have found a new respect for clone and its importance vs high end mobs while soloing. On ng it is a great distraction when chopping up the blood queen.

Machetes, they must be an ok weapon for solitary backstabs vs singular mobs. I'd probably consider them almost one shots. In fact I almsot think it would be an ok strategy in some situations to have one equipped for the backstab then hotkey back to a faster weapon after the attack. Generally I try not to play a rogue like a fighter even though their raw dual speed outclasses the others in hand to hand. Upper end rogues, I have none but I've watched a few and they do seem to be quick with the killing.

Keeping the ratio is actually a great idea. Getting to far off can drop damage like a stone. When i changed my suit a while ago, Got pretty far off the ratio and lost like 15 damage a hit. As for the enchant combo's. Always had fun messing with dual damage enchants. Like dual VAMS and VOG's. Those were pretty fun. Just AEP's keep me alive longer. When VAM and VOG doesnt do much with Wyverns. Never liked clones personally. Always seem to cause more problems, Luring more and junk. But thats just me. And Machete's. Only thing i dont like about them, Is the people who do nothing but Backstab with them. That bs, run, hide, etc. Then have a false sense of power cause they can take a mob without a pot cause they can run and hide a bunch. But if you man up and deal with the slow attack speed or like you said, Switch weapons and just continue the fight without running. Then dont mind them. Thought personally feel their power can be dropped a little and maybe increase the speed a little. I go from like.. 85's to 120's with a barbed machete from a vamp rondel. Feel thats a tid much of a difference. But this isnt the thread for that.

[Keighn]

Something I haven't tried out is using a machete in the off hand. Does it make any speed difference if its in your primary or secondary. I do realize that troll had their dual speed fixed due to a ua bug but it makes me wonder about ss weapons. Maybe thinking a fast primary and slow secondary is just that.. a hopeful thought. Have you noticed any difference with copper tints in daggers, maingauches, rondels, shortswords? I've noticed it doesn't say the speed is any faster compared to a non tint? Perhaps a bug but the speed is applied? Or mabye 1.5 is the fastest speed there is an copper won't make a difference.

[Flamesoffire]

Having a machete off hand is a little slower then an ss. Oddly, What SEEMED like the fastest combo, Was a Machete for the main and and rondel in the off. As for copper's. I dont really notice much a difference. Seems to me they are the same speed.

[eggmceye]

and let's not make this the 'ultimate class shitfight thread' keep it civil

[Eidolon]

dude egg, that profile pic is weird! looks like a human and cat face morphed into one. i feel like I may have nightmares of it

[eggmceye]

it's serious cat, know yr meme

[Eidolon]

Google was very helpful haha
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/serious-cat

/end ultimate serious cat discussion
/continue ultimate class discussion

[eggmceye]

LAUGHING OUT LOUD LIKE A MORON

[Eidolon]

i know hahahah i saw that and startin laughin my ass off. my gf was downstairs and heard me, asked what, and i didnt even know what to say

[ChrisCooper]

Keep your 25/75 str/dex ratio (less important from level 1-50 in my opinion, because you need a good deal of hp to survive).

Assuming you're a shortswords rogue, you have to weigh out your options with shortswords.

Machetes have high burst damage (meaning high damage in single bursts) but are slow to attack.

Rondels are less powerful than machetes, but a little faster (more damage per second). As a rogue, DPS is what you're looking to improve.

The other shortsword weapons are just different mixes of damage and speed, but these are the two top picks. To recap, you want machetes for burst damage (backstab) and rondels for DPS.

Seek out good tints. Don't blow all of your money on that coveted set of vampyric shortswords, because they aren't going to do you much good in pvp.

Vampyric is your tint of choice for hunting, as the hp regain cuts the need for potions in half. With a vampyric backstab, depending on the mob, you can regain a good amount of hp.

Blackrock has high damage, but you should seek out adamantium. Adamantium gives the damage bonus of blackrock, plus the AS bonus of diamond. Little known fact: Higher AS = extra damage on mobs/players that have high defense.

Venomous isn't entirely useful, as the poison effect doesn't last very long and it's easy to render useless with a scroll of protection, which anyone can pick up at a player merchant.

Copper offers slightly more damage with increased attack speed. I haven't tested copper weapons on a rogue yet, but this sounds like it = more dps. Could be worth a try.



Dual classing is another story. You could be a bitch and dual class as a priest for full heal. You could also dual class as a mage and waste 30 something levels to be completely useless.

Dual classing fighter has it's perks, with the extra AS and defense from tactics, plus the ability to use a shield (would come in handy if you fought with slings/foils).

Dual classing as a monk is an interesting idea. Monks get sleeping fists, and backstab does drastically increased damage on sleeping targets. Monks have aspects, which can give your attacks (not just your unarmed ones, btw) extra magic damage, as well as a poisonous touch. Aspect of the turtle gives a generous boost to magic resistance as well, which is one stat that the rogue lacks most.


Dual classing tl;dr:

Monk gives you a lot of perks, priest just gives you full heal. Think about it guys, they make potions for that.

[Keighn]

Only really need mani imho. VM just isn't worth it dual class. Sieze is quite nice to keep mobs close to you. Aspects are nice and sense + teleport can be fun.

[jumpstart]

Only really need mani imho. VM just isn't worth it dual class. Sieze is quite nice to keep mobs close to you. Aspects are nice and sense + teleport can be fun.

I agree.. I bumped Mario's piety just enough to cast mani without error, it really helps in many scenarios, I honestly don't understand why have a dual class skill any higher, I think the advantages of having higher primary stats far out weigh dual skilling any higher than 100/31 Mage & Piety.

Of course I'm only talking from a Mage stand point. I think it would be quite stupid to dual class mage with anything other than priest.

[Morpheus]

Fighters, Let's admit it they're slow compared to other fighting classes (i.e. rogue and monk, priests use maces which is basically fighter)

So, To get the most out of it, you need to maximize your damage. Thus i prefer to use 2H weapons over 1H for fighters.
like for example Claymore + flurry = massive damage, so if you hit like 50s with a claymore, you do around 200-250 damage with flurry.

Keep ratio 90:10 as it is very important for damage optimization (for polearms and maces). Then use +dex gear to get 75:25 if you want to use longswords and axes. (Or the other way around, 75:25 and use +str gear to make 90:10.. actually the other way seems better since it will give you some free slots for other stuff)
Getting ~200 dex for weapon speed is good but not really necessary in the beginning.

Mani is great for fighters since they already have massive hp. What i do usually is use Mani as normal healing and Pots for full heal. This doesn't really matter much since it'll depend on your playing style whether you need to rely totally on pots or mani.

Use Cleave against healing enemies like bloods, dragons and high def monsters and Flurry if you can do enough damage.

Like everyone else has already said, it's not worth putting class points in priest for VM now that it has cooldown

But one multiclass which i think would be great is 100 fighter/rogue, 70 monk and 30 priest
Basically fighter/rogue is the main class
Monk for Aspects' extra damage(Yeti works nicely) and Seize basically with added benefits of Teleport, Sense etc
Priest for healing and uncursing

[Keighn]

Dexterity is only useful for your ratio and movement speed. It has no effect on how fast you swing a weapon or cast a spell. I tested it out with a variety of weapons with lowest dex possible and highest I could muster on alpha (over 900); absolutely no difference.

Yeah, addy 2 h weapon of good + is nice imho. Far better than vamp or barbed. I do like runed as well to click off my specials more often.

Gotta agree on the 100/70/30 combination. Usually only humans or NG can play with this though. Makes me a bit sad on PD on other races but I guess I can live w/o seize or yeti.

[Thane]

i was wondering about a Dwarven rogue on PD, so i could get 75% of monk at remort. I'd like to use a crossbow for its dwarven nature, and dual wield other stuff. I want dwarf for the infravision which is handy for a rogue, 10% hp and 15% dex, i dont know if i'd ever use mithril on him, theirs still penalties for heavy armor on a rogue right? A lot of the information seems outdated, monk aspects can no longer be used with a weapon right? What if i have a SS and nothing else, can i still use aspects or sleeping fist + backstab ?