*Release* Rift Rogue Discussion

Tobliz wrote:

You cannot roguetank effectively until level 18. It is pretty pointless until you get Guardian Phase, the 18 point root ability that ties it all together.

You can't tank dungeons until 18, but for most anything other than a multiple invasion fight or a major rift fight, you can tank. So if you are partnered up and questing/leveling, tank away. Good practice, too.

Just expect that first IT run to be a bit... interesting. I didn't tank a dungeon until 28, but sailed through DSM just fine. A warrior with a paladin/reaver build will have an easier time of it, they can handle AoE threat much more effectively, but its still doable.

I didn't have a problem with AoE threat; you just need to spam rift disturbance and use that AoE damage phase shift liberally as your opening shot when you don't need to range pull. Speaking of that, putting a 0 point bard soul as your third soul is great because of Cadence. You can use that to range pull and get 2-3 points out of the gate if shifting isn't an option.

And yeah, I was referring to dungeons.... I never really tried to do rift tanking!

I've been running a Bard/MM/RS and it's been cake. To mix things up I decided to make a second role of Sabo/Assassin/Bladedancer. Right now that build is at 0/21/7. Now, I don't know if I've just been spoiled by the easy mode which is bard or if I'm just not playing things right but the assassin is a bit of a struggle for me.

One on one I'm golden, get a few adds though and he's toast. Even a 2 on 1 fight can be far closer than I like. And that's even with dazing one of the adds. Any suggestions on how best to utilize this class combo? I'm thinking of putting this build on the backburner until I can toss more points into sabo as I was thinking of putting everything from this point forward into that since I find I love those stick bombs far more than I should. I'd be interested to see what the class could do combined with perma-stealth and poisons.

Like mentioned before in this post, you can spec in sabo so that your charges dont cause aggro. So you can front load an enemy to be almost dead before it even starts to charge you. The Sabo will also get a dot trap by that point so that will help either weaken the add or kill the first enemy faster.

I could see stealthing, load up charges, pop the assassin stealth special, hit the sabo finisher and the thing should be dead. At that point, if there is an add, drop the dot trap and you should probably kill it before you can get 5 combo points on it to pull another finisher.

Also, riftstalker has a pretty awesome ability that will heal them up to %30 of their heatlh if an enemy dies with up to 5 combo points on it.

It's more than 30% if you spec into the +healing talent the riftstalker has!

My assassin build also has 13 riftstalker points to go with its 20% more heals received, which makes rift scavenger intense.

Tobliz wrote:

I didn't have a problem with AoE threat; you just need to spam rift disturbance and use that AoE damage phase shift liberally as your opening shot when you don't need to range pull. Speaking of that, putting a 0 point bard soul as your third soul is great because of Cadence. You can use that to range pull and get 2-3 points out of the gate if shifting isn't an option.

And yeah, I was referring to dungeons.... I never really tried to do rift tanking!

My rogue tank (Rift 30/Bard 5/Bladedancer 5) using both Shadow Blitz (ports you in, does AoE with additional threat) and Rift Disturbance, its still inferior to my warrior's Reaver's AoE threat abilities. The problems happen when the party isn't giving you time to lock down everything in the pull. The reaver already has it locked down before the party has a chance to do anything, unless they initiated the pull. As the rogue, I had to scramble to keep everything neat and tidy. This is particularly the case in a rift/multi-invasion fight, trying to tank everything in the area.

LtWarhound wrote:

My rogue tank (Rift 30/Bard 5/Bladedancer 5) using both Shadow Blitz (ports you in, does AoE with additional threat) and Rift Disturbance, its still inferior to my warrior's Reaver's AoE threat abilities. The problems happen when the party isn't giving you time to lock down everything in the pull. The reaver already has it locked down before the party has a chance to do anything, unless they initiated the pull. As the rogue, I had to scramble to keep everything neat and tidy. This is particularly the case in a rift/multi-invasion fight, trying to tank everything in the area.

I guess there's a reason why I've only tanked for guild groups, heh. Trying to tank for pub groups is just annoying especially with a finesse tank like the rogue.

After a couple hours of playtime today at 34, I really think I'm going to respec my BD/MM/bard to BD/RS/NB and just go pure offense. Since I can easily go into my pure bard role for rifts or dungeons, worrying about the small healing 8 points isnt worth it. For the last couple of levels I'm rarely using MM at all, since I always use my full bard for rifts and invasions.

With most points in BD, I can put enough into RS to get Rift Scavenger and a few points into NB for the coup de grace and blazing glory ability increases.

I think I'm starting to love my Bard/MM/RS build more each day. I ran the second PvP map for the first time last night. The Codex, I think?

Having MM with +4 meters to range let me snipe like there was no tomorrow from the cliff tops. I especially loved the 5 combo point deadeye shot. Against softly armored targets it would drop about 1/4 of their health. Great finishing move for when I could catch people in between heals.

I also got to pull a Gandalf on the bridge to the vault capture point. I managed to hold off a wave of guardians all by my lonesome. All of the + healing abilities along with the regeneration song and healing from my standard attacks let me take damage like a decent tank and knocking guys off the bridge with my throwback shot kept the numbers coming against me manageable. Eventually another teammate showed up to start killing the guys I'd been softening and the assault broke. I had no idea it could feel so cool to be a speed bump.

Mind you, I generally loathe PvP in most MMOs but so far I'm really enjoying the PvP battlegrounds in Rift. Oh, and in case it wasn't horribly obvious, having a couple guys do nothing but big group heals while a couple more do nothing but massive AOE's turns your group into a lawnmower. The last match I ran last night had us in control of every point and the guardians were bottled up at their spawn point where they couldn't even make it to the closest control point. It was oddly satisfying watching 10 guys drop almost at once amid the fireworks show our guys were throwing at them.

Kehama wrote:

It was oddly satisfying watching 10 guys drop almost at once amid the fireworks show our guys were throwing at them.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't so oddly satisfying to the other team. It's also probably why they would not go around saying something like:

Kehama wrote:

Mind you, I generally loathe PvP in most MMOs but so far I'm really enjoying the PvP battlegrounds in Rift.

To be fair, out of 7 matches, our side only won 2. Generally we were the ones getting slammed, yet I still had fun. Most matches involved small groups of 2 or 3 guys running around in completely different directions getting picked off by large semi-coordinated groups of guardians. In my Gandalf match we lost, even though I had fun being the speed bump. The aoe heals/nuke match was the only won we absolutely dominated and that's because I think 4 of the guys on our side were actually working together properly.

Kehama wrote:

To be fair, out of 7 matches, our side only won 2. Generally we were the ones getting slammed, yet I still had fun. Most matches involved small groups of 2 or 3 guys running around in completely different directions getting picked off by large semi-coordinated groups of guardians. In my Gandalf match we lost, even though I had fun being the speed bump. The aoe heals/nuke match was the only won we absolutely dominated and that's because I think 4 of the guys on our side were actually working together properly.

reason he said that is spending time on the vault point isnt helpful overall. ya hit it from time to time helps to draw people away from other nodes, but Codex and Scope is all that Defiant needs to get and hold to win. People fighting elsewhere tends to be wasting time.

In our losing matches it was generally because we couldn't hold the scope. I don't think we ever lost the codex for more than a few seconds. In our big win we had control of all 4 points and in my speed bump scenario we had the codex, scope, and vault but were so far behind by that point that we still lost. It was at least one of the closer matches.

Just dinged 30 with my Assassin/Nightblade/Marksman. Marksman still has only 2 points in it. The rest of the points are split maybe 60/40 between assassin and nightblade. I'm still very stoked about this combination. My only weakness right now is survivability if I get a couple of extra adds. In another few levels, when I get top tier Assassin skill that lets me go stealth in the middle of a fight, that should be sorted out as well.

With 2 pre-fight mezzes, one in-fight mez, one 4s stun-opener, and one 4s generic stun, I'm a fight controlling machine. Most of the time I can stun-lock things and kill them before they even take a swing at me. Combined with a poison that heals me, it means that trash mob questing has a net-positive effect on my health bar. I now have permanent stealth, and I haven't heard the "detection chirp" in I don't know how many levels by now. I can walk right up to orange con mobs without any issues what so ever. It means I can walk around the map with impunity. Enter quest areas blocked off by hordes of mobs and walk out without any hassle. I would almost say this character is, overall, OP. It certainly is a joy to play.

Right now I'm 32 BD/ 16 AS/ 14 RS. Incredible damage, great survivability. With RS at 14 you get the Rift Scavenger which, although nerfed a bit couple weeks ago, totally allows you to survive a multiple mob situation. The assassin skills are all ones that increase damage (I dont use stealth at all yet).

I don't talk about it that much but when I get curious I run the RJ parser during dungeon or rift runs, just to see how I'm doing. Seriously, only once has anyone even come close to this builds DPS.

I can definitely see how all the stealth complexity can add to the game, unfortunately I'm a one char guy and I'm happy with this build and my full bard role.

build here - http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0M...

I've been playing around with my rogue builds over this last weekend. I have 3 roles right now, one for survivability, one for aoe damage, and one for melee dps.

The survivor role is bard/marksman. At level 26 I've gotten the top skill in marksman and the rest in bard. I played around with bard/ranger/marksman but the ranger and marksman lines just seemed like they had too much overlap for my tastes and the pet kept getting me in trouble. It also didn't seem capable of maintaining aggro if I used any of the decent marksman shots. As it stands marksman lets me drop about half the enemies health before they close with me and then I can top off my health with cadence while I finish them off. The only con at this point is that the bard attacks are really low damage and fighting can be a boar. In groups or battlefields this build is great because I can really open up with marksman skills and still have the bard buffs to help everyone out.

For aoe damage and my main PvP build I've got assassin/sabo/bladedancer. 21 points in assassin for the perma-stealth, 0 in bladedancer just for the dodge buff, and the rest in sabo. The no-threat sabo skill is amazing. I can load up enemies with 5 charges, go into stealth, backstab an enemy, blow all the charges and then (only if nothing critted) stab them a couple more times to finish them. For large groups I can detonate 5 shrapnel charges for massive damage, toss a frag bomb, chem bomb and maybe an annihilation bomb to drop a couple groups of other players down to half health or better. The 2 second stun against a group on annihilation bomb can also be a real tide turner. Oh? And if there's a group of guys trying to run off with your flag? Toss a sticky bomb in front of them and watch your guys quickly overtake them. Need to scout out the enemy? It's rare that anyone manages to see through the stealth. An all-around great build and tons of fun. Only downside in solo questing is lack of healing. I had to buy drinks just for this build.

The melee dps build is still a work in progress. I thought I'd hit a sweet spot but taking on 3 mobs at once was just a bit too tricky. It's a riftstalker/nightblade with some 0 point soul I can't even recall at the moment. I went for the top skill in nightblade and have begun pumping up the riftstalker side. I can pull mobs with the NB ranged attacks and then usually chain together a 5 point finisher and then tack on 5 more combo points before finishing them. Having the 5 points on them at death, due to the rift scavenger ability, heals my level 26 guy for about 800 points which keeps my health topped off. The only time I ran into trouble was when I'd get lots of adds and I just couldn't cc them enough to make it out of the fights. Other than that it's a fun build that gives a nice break from the generally hands off approach to fighting I get with my marksman and sabo builds.

Kehama wrote:

For aoe damage and my main PvP build I've got assassin/sabo/bladedancer. 21 points in assassin ... Only downside in solo questing is lack of healing.

Assassin gets a root skill poison that heals on hit--20% base chance like all other poisons. But with AoE that %age would proc like mad. Oh, and Nightblade gets a very cheap, effective, spammable AoE attack early on. You may look into that instead of Bladedancer.

Good idea. When soloing I've just always been extremely reluctant to take on more than one enemy at a time if I can help it. Overly-cautious I suppose from playing glass cannons in so many games. The only times I break out the sabo's aoe's are in groups when there are tanks around to hold the aggro or in PvP where everyone is running around so much that they don't notice me standing off to the side sticking charges to them as they run past.

The nightblade 10 point aoe melee spam attack is in my current rogue build. It is great for soloing footholds.

Im running with 10bd 0sab 12nb now. When fighting 3 I can get some great aoe burst on them before I take enough damage to switch to healing cadence. After the first one dies, I can toss in a few more aoes in between cadences. When the second one dies, the third one doesn't have much left so I can cadence back up to 3/4 hp and finish them off.

karmajay wrote:

Right now I'm 32 BD/ 16 AS/ 14 RS. Incredible damage, great survivability. With RS at 14 you get the Rift Scavenger which, although nerfed a bit couple weeks ago, totally allows you to survive a multiple mob situation. The assassin skills are all ones that increase damage (I dont use stealth at all yet).

I don't talk about it that much but when I get curious I run the RJ parser during dungeon or rift runs, just to see how I'm doing. Seriously, only once has anyone even come close to this builds DPS.

I saw that parser but have been to paranoid to try it with all the hacking activity around.

Besides you're much higher than me now, but i think an AS focus with a BD secondary will net higher dps. Feels like it in the 30s.

MoonDragon wrote:
Kehama wrote:

For aoe damage and my main PvP build I've got assassin/sabo/bladedancer. 21 points in assassin ... Only downside in solo questing is lack of healing.

Assassin gets a root skill poison that heals on hit--20% base chance like all other poisons. But with AoE that %age would proc like mad. Oh, and Nightblade gets a very cheap, effective, spammable AoE attack early on. You may look into that instead of Bladedancer.

High into the Sabo tree you're able to add a nasty bleed to your aoe detonations. It clears a crowd in a hurry

High into the Sabo tree you're able to add a nasty bleed to your aoe detonations. It clears a crowd in a hurry

Yes, my precious. Cants waits to gets it.

you guys would think our rogue thread would have more activity at this rate
IMAGE(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_edsLy23mcug/TYhxU9pOC2I/AAAAAAAAADk/vQgRdlW_3X0/s1152/2011-03-21_150126.jpg)

Like I said in guild chat las night, I had planned to play a warrior. The rogue just turned out to be so much fun though. It also helps that just about any class can fill any given role to a greater or lesser extent. About the only ones I see having problems would be healing warriors or tanking mages. Just about everything else can be covered. Clerics and rogues can tank, mdps, rdps, & heal. Heck, my first ever dungeon run had a guildie rogue as the main tank and it was a better run that 99% of the pugs I had in WoW that were made up of highly specialized classes.

I really wish you guys would stop abbreviating Bard as BD, considering there is a Blade Dancer soul out there.

diogenes wrote:

you guys would think our rogue thread would have more activity at this rate

Just the way i like it:) So when RD dropped 80% mage items last night:) I got a lot of upgrades:) lol.

MoonDragon wrote:

I really wish you guys would stop abbreviating Bard as BD, considering there is a Blade Dancer soul out there. :)

+1

As a saboteur, my hands were getting tired of the intricate staccato patterns needed on the keyboard in order to maintain dps, so I decided to take a break, buy a new role and spec bard. Holy Crap. I am no longer worried about adds during fights. I can wade into the middle of groups of enemies and returned unscathed. Using Virtuoso I can aoe bomb far better than sab can, and with riftstalker as my secondary soul I am healed to full after each kill. I am a golden god. BOW BEFORE ME, MORTALS.

here is the bladedancer macro ive been using to tear up faces (by popular demand re: tob)

#show keen strike
/suppressmacrofailures
cast precision strike
cast quick strike
cast keen strike
cast disengage
cast reprisal

diogenes wrote:

here is the bladedancer macro ive been using to tear up faces (by popular demand re: tob)

#show keen strike
/suppressmacrofailures
cast precision strike
cast quick strike
cast keen strike
cast disengage
cast reprisal

You have to cast a keen strike for this to work dont you? Or is that what the suppress tag is for?

Edit: i couldnt remember the timing and after looking i guess this just does a keen strike or whatever happens to be up depending on cooldowns.

For all the mid-level aspiring rogues, I can now craft [color=blue]Fine Leather Leggings[/color].

I still require donations of actual fine leather (may have enough for perhaps one more set of pants). The rest I can craft or purchase. I think the total expense to me is around 2-3g, so no biggie. Just hit me up when I'm online (Spike/Joy/Taya/Moondragon).