Now that we have a lead developer that actually cares about us, and what we think, I would like to reopen this can of worms. First of all, I'd like to say that I'm pretty happy with most of the changes that were made to the rogue class over the past few months. However, during Oct 2009, the rogue class went through some pretty significant changes, and some of them we didn't want, didn't ask for, and really don't like. And there's a matter of some other things we didn't really like. #1. Poisons/Utility - There was a radical change from the way the rogue class used/created poisons. The original system was clunky and confusing. It forced you to carry all kinds of components, with a bag that had to take up one of your precious bag slots. We asked for more streamlining for this process, for lower level rogues to get a chance to get a bag that wasn't taking up a bag slot (Such as belts like higher level rogues can get). What we got was a money sink that is unfair to the rogue class. We currently have to buy our poisons/utility. Oh yes, we can pickpocket our stuff, but at only 7 per stack they are really never used, and generally just take up bag space. I believe we calculated it out that if you play a raiding rogue that makes use of poisons and flechettes, you'll be spending about 20g a night if you raid a good few hours at a time. No other class has to blow money just to make it on the parse. Let me explain how this works for people unfamiliar with the rogue class. In order for us to use poisons, we have to apply the poison to our weapons. Then everytime the poison procs, it uses up one of the poison vials in our inventory. So yes, if you proc once every few seconds, you could easily burn through a stack in a matter of minutes. Advanced poisons? Well they come in stacks of 7. You can see how useless this is. This means if you want the advanced version over the bought stuff you get to farm for hours and hours and hours in hopes you get a stack worth maybe one five minute fight. What I would like to see from this is either: A. Make it so that the Advanced versions will be just a buff, and do not use up vials when they proc. or B. Give them in stacks of at least 20. For the nonadvanced version, they are 17S a stack. I'm sure people think this isn't much money, but keep in mind how that adds up over time. It's unfair to force this moneysink on a class that requires these items just to keep up with other DPS classes. Now most raiding rogues use Flechettes, not really so much weapon poison because of the above issue with price, and very little DPS returned. Our viper venom, on average, gives us maybe a boost of 30 dps. I mostly use the poison that reduces the mob's strength and constitution, just to give a debuff, not really for the DPS. If we're going to pay this much for the procs, then they should give us a significant boost in DPS? And I mean along the same lines as Rangers using foraged arrows vs crafter created ones. All in all, the biggest change I would like to see is the requirement of vials or stones in the inventory in order to proc poisons and vampiric thirst. Please go back to making them just buffs that last for X amount of time. Darts: Can we please use them in combat? It's really ridiculous that we can't. This is the reason that most rogues don't bother with them at all. And our sleep dart: I still don't think it's working for the full duration. I don't think that issue ever got fixed but I haven't really been using it much. #2. The POTA T3 5 Piece Bonus Shadow Assassins - Please get rid of them. PLEASE. Please I beg of you to please get rid of them. Every rogue I know hates them. If you try to escape while those stupid things are up, it'll pull you right back into combat. Their DPS isn't included in the parse. They are functionally useless in every way. Can you just calculate how much DPS they might add and throw it into the POTA set bonus instead? Or you know what, just get rid of them in general. If the devs are willing to take these comments seriously, I'm sure my fellow rogues have some other ideas they'd like to put forth for these two issues, or other issues that I'm forgetting. If you want some hard and fast actual numbers, let us know and we'll surely get them.
when they removed the ability to assemble poisons/utility from rogues i quickly deleted my rogue. it would be nice to see them return this function as well as adding ways for rogues to help offset the price of flechette spam via pickpocket and assemble.
What I would really like to see is a return of some of our utility. It seems that in the post 50 game, a lot of the flavor that made us more than just average damage dealers is entirely useless. Some of my best memories playing a vanguard rogue were in Thelaseen/Vol Tuniel and later in Nusibe Necropolis. I could stealth past mobs, crowd control, darts were useful and effective, Often, I was even the puller who could easily split groups of 2 and 3 for my group. Some of those things can be used situationally still, but its far rarer. I loved being able to blackjack 1 mob, sleep dart another, and kill the 3rd mob of a group, and escaping before either wore off. I felt like an assassin, hunting nameds and what not. Now if Im in a group, I just wait in group and then start stabby stabby and spamminng flechettes and try not to pull agro. So to sum up: 1) Make stealth effective again, even if we need to camp gear that gives +mod to hide/sneak like the Blood Soaked Targonar Soldier Boots. I don't care if I need +100 hide/sneak or more to move effectively through an area, just so long as its possible. Every mob should be able to be stealthed past if Im behind it and have skill equal to its level. No "see stealth" flags! 2) Like Jakkal said, allow us to use darts in combat and let our darts affect more mobs in the 51-55 game. It would be great to be able to sleep a mob that agro'd an "in combat" group at a crucial time. Again, this is possible sometimes, but its far rarer to find non-immune mobs in the 51-55 game than the 1-50 game. 3) Just for fun, maybe add in a rogue scroll that we cast that ups the chance for special cash drops when in a group. Call it "Second purse" or something. So a group with a rogue could get a little bump in vendorable items to offset grind costs at the end game. Im just talking about items that sell for 3-4g instead of the typical 17-50 silver. To balance, give the scroll ranks that increase the drop percent by different amounts so you don't break the lower level economy. For instance, "Second purse I" gives a 2% increase while "Second Purse V" gives a 10% increase. It would just add a little flavor to the class as "thieves", while promoting grouping and (shamelessly) making rogues a little more desired for group exp grinding. In short, bring back the fun aspects of playing a rogue, not related to increasing dps.
good points jakkal! Rogue darts should have been useable in combat from the beginning. I'd also like to see hostage negotiations made into an ability a rogue might actually use some day. Just tried it a bit ago for the fun of it. Stunned me but not the mob. Mob killed me while pointing and laughing. I liked the idea of the assasins. but yea they do tend to screw things up quite a bit. I'd rather see a fix for them, then getting rid of them.
I'm just starting out as a rogue and definitely loving it. But even at my current level (31) I can tell that the main points Jakkal is making are very valid. Except the POTA T3 thing, idk what thats about Having an entire vial of poison poof every time it procs is reallly ridiculous. At my level I dont even bother because I dont have the bag space for all that extra crap. From what others have said; It sounds like the class might change once I hit 51 and mobs start to become immune to the classes key elements such as stealth. I even heard that in CoB there isn't a single mob you can stealth past. But that invis still works just fine. That seems really silly from my perspective. These are issues that should definitely be addressed.
I do not want more utility personally, I would rather be fixed and have darts/poisons and so on working and actually useful. DPS is my main gripe, we are described as being the #1 DPS class from the box set and over the years we have been wound down to fight to be anywhere near classes like Monks and Bards, Bards have massive utility and we do not, so we should be balanced to be higher DPS. I could go on and on but I have pretty much given up on getting any kind of decent change to the Rogue class, the old Devs throw extra 10% at us and walk away thinking we are fixed and will shut up... I hope you can talk attract enough attention Jak to get a DPS boost and a few things fixed but please be careful what you ask for and no more utility! We are supposed to be Dps machines, glass canons of the light fighters...
When i say more utility, i mean just a return of the things that made us a fun class 1-50. Aspects of the class that still exist in the 1-50 game. Usefulness of stealth, darts, ability to blackjack and cc, etc. If we only ask for more dps now, we will continue to be one of the most boring one dimensional classes to play post 50, imo. Rogues have always been my favorite classes since UO in 1997, but i get very little enjoyment playing the class now in the post 50 game.
Am I the only one that remembers the rogue sleep dart was originally a lull dart? And then one patch it was changed to a mezz. I personally miss it being a lull dart, it helped me split mobs easier than it being a mezz, since mezzing something outta combat therefore engages combat. At least it was useful when trying to solo, and also like Fawkes mentioned, utility in groups lvling up. I feel like this is why it's still not flagged as usable in combat. If it's changed to usable in combat and kept as a mezz, great, but I miss having a lull dart too, maybe add in another dart like the old version?
I find that to be a huge over-statement. Yes bards have utility at lower level, but then Rogues DPS at the lower levels will greatly outwiegh the bard's. The bards with massive DPS only get there after PotA and epics and AUGs. Once bards hit that level in endgame their "utility" is shot down. Group buff and 1 mez. And while I do not play a rogue judging from Jakkal's and other rogue's in our guild, DPS is not even close to the low numbers a lot of people on the forums seem to suggest.
A lot of the rogue QQing about DPS was actually a bug in our epics which made them do nothing at all. It was only recently (Summer of 2012) that it was addressed. So while everyone else got a massive dps boost from POTA/Epics, the rogue was left in APW territory. The difference though is that a bard with epics has a very comparable amount of DPS to rogues, *And* they have the song benefits for the entire group. This is why when you have a rogue vs a bard, the rogue will almost always have to sit out. We've even seen in our own guild, much as I hate to say it, a boxed afk bard getting a spot over a live rogue because people in the guild were convinced that the bard helped the raid more than the rogue. (Thankfully I am starting to convince them not to do that anymore). There's no real advantage of having a rogue vs having a bard - because of what the bard brings to the group. The Problem is, in order to get a rogue to do the amount of damage that makes them shine (or make them group worthy vs a bard) requires they get the JBOS and a stupid rare drop from the turtle. Rogues that don't have these things are still sitting in the low end of the DPS charts, with restrictions that other dps classes don't have to deal with.
That's because Rogues can wield Axes and Swords in off hand...which = much higher Dps. Rogues also lose out after level 51 though, we are forced to duel wield daggers which are lower dps than axes/swords with a faster hit rate which has been proven to be lower Dps compared to a slower hitting weapon for Rogues, plus we have a few useless abilities at end game, HN is a joke and our poisons/darts and so on do not always work properly. I wasn't starting a class vs class battle or trying to insult Bards Apa, I just needed to use them as an example. Veganzombie as many would know, was our Reverence super Bard, I used to struggle against him on certain mobs where I should of easily topped the parse for light-fighters. He would not only go up against me but also provide awesome utility to the entire group, Rogues Dps % does not stack with Bard song...so again, we are in trouble from the start. As Jakkal stated, other classes have Dps + Utility during combat, the Rogue does not have any where near as much and again, I want our things fixed, not anymore Utility added, I love the Rogue class but we really need a big work over and I doubt that will ever happen as it will be deep down in the too hard basket. So my suggestion is more Dps please and help us to get that #1 spot back (on most mobs, not all).
Also, when I compare rogues and bards, that comparison also assumes that the rogue gets the bard song damage boost. I'm fairly certain that a bard with damage song will parse as well if not better than a rogue without it. Rogue is very very group makeup dependent, something as simple as a paladin or a disciple in group can make or break our DPS. Basically Silius's version of "balancing" the rogue was to it give a stupid rare dagger and vital strikes II on a mob that very few guilds can take down, resulting in only a handful of rogues actually living up to the potential of the class.
I know you weren't trying to bash bards Kilsin and as for jakkal's arguement, Rogue vs bard in a group? I think that can be shorten to anyone vs Bard and the bard is always gonna get picked. In my opinion Bards wouldn't be a far class to compare anyone to because they are pretty OP for what they are supposed to do. You both know that I do not play a rogue so I cannot say from personal experience but from what I have seen from Jakkal and Verath and others who are in Unleashed (who arent augged out yet and can still top parses) rogue DPS is fine. 8)
It's difficult to compare DPS between classes especially with so many variables in the content and make up. I do feel the Rogue DPS isn't lacking much, given the right circumstances. I can out parse most geared dpsers atm if I can melee/behind/with daggers, the target the entire time but there isn't many high end targets that allow me to do that. Which is understandable, we can't have all the glory. Although I do feel those fights are more lacking. As for utility it's obvious rogues add little to the raid where as all the other dpsers do bring something to the table, (stance pushing/ench stripping/group buffing..) The combination of current content and what a rogue brings to the raid dps/utility wise is only problem I currently have. It's a safer bet to put in other well geared/skilled dpsers over a rogue in most raid encounters. The simple solution may just be to boost our dps to make us feel better, but I feel it's more about the content. Give us something to do, let us bring something to the table other than decent melee dps. I mean why can't I Hostage Negotiate Sparkles in case things get crazy? (joke)
Verath has topped me on certain fights using the "&&@"$ dagger of dispelling. Give me a break with this argument. It takes an absolute beast of a bard build to touch a run of the mill rogue build. I'm not saying this is out of balance. I agree that rogues should be at the top along with monks. But comparing the 5 bards on the server who can put out comparable rogue dps is a bit disengenuous when there are horribly geared rogues doing just as much dps as my build.
I think our DPS is fine at this point with the recent changes they made, the dagger expertise changes and fixing the epics. I think the dagger expertise boost definitely helped restore us from the horrible main-hand-dagger/dual dagger nerf. That was so recent though, so I don't think a lot of people have had the proper time to gauge it. Pre-fix we were getting outparsed by everyone, including disciples on some fights (And that's with giving the rogue bard song as well). So this is the reason you see a lot of rogues complaining about DPS. But like I said, the rogue is also very group dependent, so having a bard, pally, or a disc in the rogue's group could make or break where they show up on the parse. I'd still like to see some numbers sometime with a rogue using only self buffs vs a bard using only self buffs. I'm interested to see where both classes land on that.
