I'm not entirely sure how to play a Rogue.

Gishes and Mages both make sense, Warriors are block or counter attack machines who wade in and just kind of slaughter everything as long as they can reach it. Mages are also something that I understand, where you build magic power and nuke everything before it can get into melee range where it horrifically murders you. Both of these are pretty easy to comprehend...

But I always run into a wall when I hit Rogues, what do I even do with these guys? They don't have the AoE of mages, and they lack the ability to simply walk into a room and slaughter everything like Warriors do. I guess they are meant to single out targets to kill, playing stealthily and the like; but without the crowd control of magic or the sheer bulk of a warrior I end up getting slaughtered, especially at Monster Zoos.

So could someone toss me a rogue-ish, one could almost say rogue like build, any tips they are willing to share, and perhaps a small explanation as to how to play them? Right now I am running the vanilla version with all the DLC but no mods, I've been planning on installing the Complete Essential Skills mod, so with any build suggestions feel free to use any of the skills from that package of skills.

Thanks in advance to any veterans that are willing to share their advice, good dungeon-eering and adventuring everyone!

 

I'm just on my way out the door, but if you're running with CES, you'll find that Ninjitsu makes Rogue/Throwing builds much more viable. Moar later.

 

Basically rogues are all about items and are generally better at utilizing and gathering them, be it by sneaking past enemies and looting the room or by hailing crossbowy doom upon a zoo untill only the orphans remain. Sadly though that's also their grand weakness as that makes them very luck dependent and unlike other styles where the luck factor is more of an early game phase it's consistent for the rogue as sqlee needs a constant supply of loot in order to stay in the game, namely consumeables and reagents. Hence why the rogue skills are mostly, if not exclusively, used for support.

The upside is that playing a rogue on Going Rogue with permadeath on is very much as roguelike as it get's with the constant rescource management, the downside is that you have to be very, very, very lucky to ever see Dredmor.

EDIT: Also Daggers, Archery, Werediggle and/or Rogue Scientist are probally the best build-around skills for a rogue, okay not so much Werediggle as it's more of a warrior build skill despite being classified as a rogue skill.

 

Well, it has invisibility, it create items (eggs) and it is useful for manage the geometry of the surrondings. Plus, it works like a charm with the really powerful bolts from high level thinkering, since it adds rough power to damage.

 

Shields
Unarmed
Archeology
Clockwork Knight
*Tinkering
*Rage
*Perception

Build focusses on getting mirror-shields or other shields with buttloads of resists on it. Perception and Clockwork Knight will give you more loot to craft bolts and AoE thrown (when you're level 6 tinkering, you can craft all gunpowder and iron into Iron Bombs; great AoE), and always be on the look out for a Fiery Wand to craft bolts of destruction for Dredmor.
Perception and Tinkering will give you enough trapsight to level up easily from disarming traps every floor. Shields sync with Unarmed, and the unarmed skills are handy when dealing with pushable objects. Clockwork Knight aswell.
Archeology gets you even more xp, because all weapon artifacts are instant-IBIAM.
Rage has a nice level that gives you a lot of resists, and the skill itself might be useful when dealing with multiple targets.

 

The character sure looks like very powerful, but there is a problem here: 4 of the 7 skills are warrior trees, and OP was asking about Rogues (and I, at least, understood he was talking about pure rogue).

 

Relatively pure rogues, Vitellozzo; I tend to need to dabble just a bit in the other trees, usually to make up for the disadvantages of my main skills. Think more of a 4:3 or better (5:2, 6:1) split in favor of rogue's rather than the other way around, though that build does look quite nice...my first Clockwork knight too me the furthest I've been down into the dungeon, duel wielding Axes is good stuff...but I made a rather embarrassing mistake and it quickly spiraled from "Oh god I'm a noob" to "Time to reroll"

Also, perhaps I'm a narrow thinker but isn't it better to have Throwing Weapons or Crossbows as a skill when intending to use them? Or are they not worth the slot and more than functional with simply the higher level crafts?

 

To put it in the terms of the OP.

Warriors: Armor, Counter, Crit, Kill.
Mages: MP, Mana, Spells, Kill.

Rogues: Dodge, Counter, Crit, Kill.

Yeah, they're a lot like warriors in that regard, except where a Warrior has consistent damage reduction in the form of Armor Absorb, Rogues have inconsistent damage reduction in the form of Dodge. That means that Rogues are much more prone to dying to streaks of bad luck. To make up for that, they have oodles of secondary tricks that help mitigate bad luck -- primarily by avoiding combat altogether. Sneakiness. Picking up and laying traps. Archery+Perception for long-distance sniping. Playing a Rogue is all about finding ways to minimize the number of times an enemy gets a swing at you, and then counting on your excellent Dodge to avoid a goodly percentage of those swings.

Rogues have trouble with mobs they can't escape from and hordes that surround them. Building to accommodate those weaknesses is a key part of building a Rogue. That's why Burglary is the quintessential Rogue skill: Trap Affinity, free consumables out of vending machines, free lewt from Brax...and invisibility and teleport. Bam, done, you call me, you know where I live.


Rogue Skills of Note:
Buglary, for all the reasons just mentioned.

Tinkering, because unless and until GLG accepts my Archery and Throwing revamps, Tinkering will be the best nonmagical distance-combat skill in the game, and the best trap-dealing-with skill in the game too.

Fungal Arts, because it singlehandedly gives you oodles of escape-enabling consumables, pets, and a confusion proc.

Demonologist, because Celestial Circle (though everyone underestimates Flames of the Abyss -- it's good, too.)

Piracy, because Swashbuckling (though Mark of the Black Spot is a HUGE tool for dealing with named mobs.)

Rogue Scientist, because weapons on cooldown are good, and 1 point of Alchemy + 1 point of Tinkering means excellent production of Healing Potions (assuming you can find the necessary toolkits.)

Paranormal Investigator, because Skepticism.

Daggers, because Rogue melee weapon!


Solid 5:2 Rogue Builds:
Daggers, Perception, Paranormal Investigator, Tinkering, Rogue Scientist, Alchemy, Psionics:
With HUGE crafting power (Perception + Rogue Scientist give ingredients, Paranormal Investigator gives recipes), plenty of ranged combat options (Crossbows, Rogue Scientist weapons, Eye Lasers, Nerve Staple), and a solid plan for getting past the first-floor hump (Daggers + Narcosomatic Induction), this is a build that can take out Dredmor pretty handily (hint: collect Clockwork Drill Bombs, and stack them.)

Daggers, Demonology, Burglary, Artful Dodger, Fungal Arts, Battle Geology, Communism
This is the Rogue that pretends to be a Warrior. Wall of Blades Stance gives +25 Block, Celestial Circle gives +45 Block, and Geology gives +8 Block for a total of 78 block just from skills, without need of equipment. Get 12 more from stuff (which is trivial), and you're at 100 Block and thus taking 1/4 basic and 1/2 exotic damage from everything. Add the high Counter bonus from Wall of Blades and the high Dodge from Artful Dodger (plus Adventurer Aikido!) and you're basically golden. Even enemy wizards will have to get through your +75 Magic Resistance from Celestial Circle. If you ever need to break your Circle before combat ends, down one of your dozens of Inky Hoglanterns first so you can do so safely and set up your Circle again before you become visible again.

 

It's just that pure rogue builds seem way too boring to me, there's no combat whatsoever because you just sneak from one to another, and when there's the situation to attack one, you can just hurl one of your fancy baseballs which does a shitload of damage because exotic damagetypes.

----

Tho, my favourite is probably;

Archery
Artful dodger
Perception
Burglary !or Tinkering!
Assassination
Archeology
Daggers

Archery and Perception because EDR, Artful Dodger because a lot of dodge, Burglary not actually needed, but it gives some trap affinity.
Assassination and Daggers work nicely together; the stance that debuffs all your melee damage and buffs crits and sneakiness, can be further buffed by Assassination because it has all these occasional crits and it boosts crits anyways.
Archeology is really handy to have for any build imho, because all useless artifacts will rather be IBIAM'd than sold, making it easier to get more skills.

Also, Tinkering is better than Burglary because trap affinity. At any level you can disarm all those pesky traps, and you can even craft the bolts needed for Archery.

 

So, quoting again Alistaire's build

you could do something like:
Shields (or burglary or artful dodger for more rogue)
Unarmed (or archery/throwing/daggers for more rogue)
Archeology
Clockwork Knight (it stays here, since the loot and the skills)
Tinkering
Assassination
Perception
Or you can just follow those gold tips from Essence and build your big bad thief.
Anyway, I need to recolour Werediggle since no one of us has suggested that skill. And I love the concept.

 

Are you... God?

 

Well, I think I'm going to give one of Essence's builds a try and see how it goes. Here is hoping I can at least die to Dredmor!

Thanks for the tip everyone, I'll be posting the results of my run for better or for worse, and I'll see if I can pinpoint any mistakes I made and ask about how to avoid making them again ^_^

 

Well Gentlemen, I've been messing about with Essence's first build of:

Daggers
Perception
Paranormal Investigator
Tinkering
Rogue Scientist
Alchemy
Psionics

And so far things have been going ok, I've been really busy lately but I made it to floor three and I've been doing fine. Brax seems to have good items for sale and I've already started amassing bolts, although I've been in a constant fight for my life. Namely because I've been living off the land so to speak, and haven't amassed enough steel or enough crafting to make use of what I have. Which could actually have been my main problem.

Oh traps have been no issue for me, none whatsoever. And one on one encounters are fairly easy as long as I can combo the Narsomic Induction with the Swap from daggers, the sonic blaster from rogue scientist, and if need be the capstone from Paranormal Investigator. The issue comes from dealing with mobs, now sure Alien weapon is very helpful but I've been having to play exceptionally smart to even have a chance of surviving.

I'm fairly under-equipped in terms of items, and I've had to replace my Dagger...I can still do the swap and fortunately I haven't ranked up daggers at all but it's frustrating to not have the right kinds of equipment. So far I've only died once, and that was because I accidentally stepped on a blue glyph...>_> yeah I was dead before I knew it.

Anyway, my current levels look a little weird because I have 1 point into Rogue scientist, Capped out Paranormal investigator, a point in perception, and a point or two in tinkering. I've decided to max out tinkering next, taking a point in Rogue scientist when needed, and then moving on to alchemy. I've been saving all of the things, which has meant that I'm a little low on cash but it's better to be safe and have what I need to craft than be sorry and suddenly find myself with a Brax item and suddenly not be able to craft what I need.

A list of what can and can't be used in crafting would be nice, does that exist?

Anyway, I'm not really a screenshot guy but I can post one of Inigo Skinner if you need it.

And do you agree on my choice of ranking up tinkering?

Until the next time fellow adventures! Now, I go on the hunt! Let's see if I can survive floor 3!

EDIT: Because I played on

I managed to take floors 3 to 5, and have ended off before entering floor six. Or was it seven? One or the other, doesn't matter. Tinkering has been capped during those adventures, and while I absolutely melt in melee combat all those crafting recipes from Paranormal are paying off and I managed to get the clockwork dagger and a rail-launcher. Unfortunately my defensive equipment is not too good, and I'm looking for more counter-attack/dodge gear. Until then I've been wearing damage, utility, and health boosting equipment.

Tinkering is really powerful, and combined with alchemy all of those acid flask arrows are incredible, massive help for zoos...though what was more helpful was 10 rockbolts...all of the funneling I tell you, all of the funneling.

Right now, I'm working on getting Rogue scientist up, and after I get to the pen-ultimate one of that (unless that wandlore lets me make firey rods actually, I found the BoMD recipe) I'm going to change my levels toward alchemy or Daggers, probably daggers as I need some kind of melee.

Anyway, that was a massive section, it's cold, and I think my fingers are falling off, but that's what's happened so far, I think I'm doing pretty good all things considered.

Oh, and I died to a Rutabaga, fricking charge, but fortunately I don't use perma-death, though I will leave the file if I do something stupid. Less hassle, and this way I can choose when to end my run. Not "scumming" verses Dredmor.

 

You need more points in Rogue Scientist. Alchemical Toxin Canister, Baromatic Vortex Upgrade, and Acidical Projector are all great AoE attacks. Start leveling that up before anything else. Just don't bother with the capstone. You won't have the mana to use it ever, and even if you do, it deals almost no damage.

 

Now just wait until Ruigi comes in and asks why you didn't have 9 wandcrafting when you tried it.

 

This thread is just begging for a mention of the phrase: "Rogues do it from behind."

 

It'll be a lot better if we ever make wands, and by extension wand crafting, usable, but as it stands, it's worthless.

 

It was worse in the past. But it is still pretty awful as a skill. Hopefully it will eventually get fixed without ruining balance.

 

??? Wrong thread? ???

 

oh yes indeed.... Uhh.... daynab? Could you put that in your thread?