Rogue Buffs

[Wilko]

Am I alone in being a little dissapointed about the lack of overall buffs we get?

I have a 24ranger on Hilsbury also and although I enjoy both, my ranger is pretty much the more versatile job, in every aspect.

Rogue is very nice in a group setting and that's all I tend to play in, for that reason. I just find the lack of any sort of buff a little dissapointing. Rangers get a decent variety of buffs which help massive amounts, why not Rogues?

I played a thief in FFXI, it was heavily focused around concentration of evasiveness via pulling, quick/effective pulling, sneaking aspects (which Sigil covered perfectly) and dropping hate behind a defensive target via the means of an ability (this also got covered in the recent patch). I know it's a completely different game, but the roles are very similar.

At the very, very least I was expecting some kind of speed enhancement or a non-general "Flee" ability.

I'm not focusing this on a complaint format, just more of a dissapointed level. I love my Rogue and I enjoy playing it, that won't change.

[Gorly]

Am I alone in being a little dissapointed about the lack of overall buffs we get?

...

Rogue is very nice in a group setting and that's all I tend to play in, for that reason. I just find the lack of any sort of buff a little dissapointing. Rangers get a decent variety of buffs which help massive amounts, why not Rogues?

...

Right out of your game manual, it's the first paragraph of the desciption of rogues:

Rogue. Preferring to strike from the shadows, the rogue is an underhanded fighter who will do anything
to win. As a rogue, you’re a damage dealer of the first order, but require the assistance of others (to
provide a distraction) in order to reach your full potential. You gain many abilities that work with your
sneaky nature.

So our first, primary and overwhelming job in any situation should be to deal damage "of the first order" from the shadows. Buffs are not necessary for this job, in fact one could logically argue that if the "first order" were to truely be honored as Sigil wrote that, then Rogues would probably forgo group-assisting buffs entirely because our damage alone, even at the cost of needing assistance, should be enough to make others recognize the usefulness of having a rogue.

Unfortunately, as I level up my own rogue, I find what you say to be more and more true. Rangers specifically, are more versatile and seem to fill the damage role just as good as a rogue and don't have all the stickiness of needing to remain stalking or have many distractions. Then again, neither do most casters.

Ungrouped, as a rogue, I feel completely naked compared to my blood mage. When I'm soloing a solo quest and need to really speed of the damage I know rogue won't do it, but my blood mage can, in fact he has always been able to safely kill even level 3 dot mobs and takes on four dot monsters one level under him with relative ease, recognizing the danger.

I played a thief in FFXI, it was heavily focused around concentration of evasiveness via pulling, quick/effective pulling, sneaking aspects (which Sigil covered perfectly) and dropping hate behind a defensive target via the means of an ability (this also got covered in the recent patch). I know it's a completely different game, but the roles are very similar.

I was a thief too in FFXI and played to 70 before quitting. Theif for the longest time among US players was a pariah class because they were too technical for most of them to understand. Thief was a role, much like most rogues, where they can either help or hamper the group and it almost entirely is up to the group in question, not the rogue-type. I still had groups in the 60s who couldn't complete SATA Reverberation chains because the tank insisted on constantly moving around the target and destroying my ability to get any sort of consistent line.

You cannot compare these two classes though, it's just not possible. For one thing, while in FFXI the thief was probably one of the best pulling classes, here rogues are no better than anyone else and can destroy their advantage of stealth if they were pulling.

Rogues are not necessarily about evasion, but "underhanded" dirty tricks instead. Rogues from this perspective don't necessarily belong to the "light fighter" segment, even though that is the most convenient place for Sigil to place them. Thieves in FFXI were definitely just light fighters with a bonus to evasion style playing; they could "evade" their hate via trick attack and evade direct conflict fighting by using their "sneak" attack. Thief was more of a monk style of play with a "bonus" to atacks from behind the monster.

And one last point, classes in FFXI are *much* more simple. Look at all of them and with the exception of the mages, there are fewer abilities given than any other game in the industry that I'm aware of. Even at 70+ most classes have a handful of actual abilities that are unique to them, especially thieves and warriors.

Definitely things we should be looking forward, granted this is my opinion: a boost to rogue stealth to allow sneaking beyond monsters that are at least 2 or 3 levels above the rogue (allowing the rogue to actually scout around corners, etc in dungeons and maybe utilize blackjack while grouping in an upper-level dungeon.. BEFORE the pull), not a lessening in overall damage but an increase, "fix" to continuing stalking damage (idk if this actually works, I've been in parties where I never broke sneak the whole time and still do basically the same damage as the first time I hit it.).

Rogues are about surprise damage, bar none, and should be providing it. Really, rogues should be the melee equivalent of all those really impressive damage dealing magic casters, even at the cost of medium armor mitigation. In fact, I'd support rogues wearing light armor, if they were only more in line iwth the description. Maybe things change later though, idk yet.

[Wilko]

Thanks for the reply, everything you put was basically spot on.

In my mind the thing that I thought was maybe missing was the ability to take being sneaky to the next level. A lot of the time stuck in dungeon's, a bad pull would wipe the group and i'm usually the last person alive. Short of that ability at 38 "Escape" I am hunted down and killed. An ability to cancel your hate out to pulled targets you haven't hit would be warmly welcomed, for instance. As it stands, I really just find the lack of say for instance something like the rangers dex/const.+ buff a missed feature, this could be more the fact that i've played ranger and don't like the fact that I don't have it, the speed buff is the same. If anything, I think Rogue should have that over ranger, it's more fitting.

As you said, FFXI jobs were patheticly simple, any mug can play that game, although it takes a more skilled player to do it well in an end-game setting. I just find they covered some aspects Sigil maybe should have implemented. Steal, for instance and as mentioned, Flee.

At the end of the day though, it's just me ranting about things i'd like to have maybe seen on the class. Like I said, it's not a complaint, I love the job and i'll continue to play it.

[Gorly]

If I were to have a short RP concept of a rogue personality, at least into the late teens, it would be brash, but smart about it. Rogues would have the mentality of, "oh, well I'll try anything once." Rogues would suffer the same fate as anyone they're around, but prolong it as much as possible.

As far as escaping the scene of a fight-gone-bad, I do believe that sneak itself provides you some level of comfort while fighting groups. Once you engage a creature on a group pull, and sneak does not break, I get the impression the rogues hate is only with that one creature. I say this because of a couple situations where I was able to finish the monster I had targeted without sneak breaking but the rest of the party died off to other monsters in the pull while I was left sneaking. This has only happened twice, so who knows maybe I'm just getting lucky :)