Are rogues useful?

[Halk]

I think rogues hinge on assassination skills, more so than any of the other two classes they're dependent on one particular skill tree.

[Mortimer]

I find rogues really useful I have one with throwing and assassination, and one with dodge and daggers in front, the one in front has started out living the minotaur tank, and the one in back when out of weapons can use a melee weapon. but really I like the dodge rogue the best, I think he's my favorite party member

[killington]

I have mine using throwing weapons, and it's guaranteed damage from safety. They don't do as much damage as warriors or wizards, but its nice to have guaranteed damage for kiting if your party is in trouble.

[DaveI]

I wondered the same. Not through the game yet, but I put quite some skill points into long range attack, which doesn't prove very useful up to now.

[Patchumz]

Rogue is the least useful, but not useless. Could easily replace your rogue with a mage and the only thing you'd notice is an extreme damage increase.

Except no, because if you had built your rogue properly with daggers and assassination (if you're going for damage output on a rogue) you'd see 80's flying all over the place with ridiculous speed and evasion so high it wouldn't even matter that they can attack from the back row (except now you have two front row fighters plus this badass rogue)

First, 80's are low; second, they can miss; third, their damage can be heavily mitigated by armor (trolls); fourth, they lack the utility a mage can bring

SpoilerShow

invisibility, elemental shields, etc

The only benefit a rogue has over a mage, is unlimited attacks without resting, and maybe the dodge tree. But with enough good armor you can turn your mage into an evasion tank too.

[Myeka]

You're talking only about damages (not dps) but i still think mage has a better dps than rogue (if you're quick enough with the runecasting). I think in easy or normal difficulty you can make a party without a rogue, but in hard, i'm reconsidering it.

In most of the fights, your warrior or mage will be more suitable but there are a few fights where your mage is simply useless (because he dies so fast it's a shame). Let's take the Fighter's Challenge for example: in Hard mode, you spawn, you get surounded (if unlucky), your mage dies without casting a single spell => total dps: 0. These vicious creatures have a high dodge rate too, so warriors miss a LOT (with a higher recovery before being able to attack again). In this case, rogue is the most suitable character.

In hard mode, I'm really considering doing a party with 2 rogues and 2 mages, because warrior hits hard, but when cornered they just die very fast while rogue survive. I'm not denying mage is really useful in 90% of the case (i can't even imagine a party without a mage in hard mode) but I'm really thinking about getting rid of the warrior and put a rogue instead. I'm only afraid about the early levels though, because rogue sucks ass at the beginning and some encounters may be very very difficult (i'm thinking about the 3 undeads soldiers in level 2 or the spider's den in level 3)

Anyhow, I think the composition of your party should reflect your playstyle and your personal abilities. No one will deny a sword is better than a stick, but a trained swordman with a stick is better than a rookie with a sword.

[Devil]

Playing on Normal, I made a front line unarmed Human Rogue, I took evasion trait and maxed dex - from the get go it had more dmg then my sword fighter and was basically better in every respect then my fighter until I picked up the sword of Nix - after that the sword fighter started doing more damage, but the Rogue was quite easily the most survivable - he solo'ed the fighters challenge where my fighter fell after 20 seconds.

[HeavyMetalMonk]

Rogue is the least useful, but not useless. Could easily replace your rogue with a mage and the only thing you'd notice is an extreme damage increase.

Except no, because if you had built your rogue properly with daggers and assassination (if you're going for damage output on a rogue) you'd see 80's flying all over the place with ridiculous speed and evasion so high it wouldn't even matter that they can attack from the back row (except now you have two front row fighters plus this badass rogue)

First, 80's are low; second, they can miss; third, their damage can be heavily mitigated by armor (trolls); fourth, they lack the utility a mage can bring

SpoilerShow

invisibility, elemental shields, etc

The only benefit a rogue has over a mage, is unlimited attacks without resting, and maybe the dodge tree. But with enough good armor you can turn your mage into an evasion tank too.

80's aren't low when you're at the point in the game where your frontrow fighters hit for 100 when their specials kick in, plus the rogue gets much faster cooldown.

[Fnord]

I thought my rogue was incredibly useful. Once he got the ability to throw two throwing weapons at once, he became a real powerhouse in terms of damage. While the mage was able to deal more damage per hit, my rogue was able to last longer and attack faster.

[Pyros]

I certainly don't think they're useless, in my opinion they're both very good frontlines and fairly good backlines. Front, evasion > protection by far, so dodge is a lot better than armor as a tanking skill. Damage wise a well built sword warrior will eventually outdps a rogue but if you get assassination points and a frost mage, you can abuse backstabs which do very very high damage. I'm not a big fan of damage frontlines though so your mileage may vary here.

Backline, missile weapon max, shooting a shortbow and normal arrows will do as much DPS as greaterfireball spam with 20%cooldown(from bracer, you can get more with spellcraft though). The issue is very quickly you'll be able to sustain damage a lot more with an archer than you can with a mage, unless using potions(which are limited anyway). Missile weapons really shine when you get the skill that fires 2 shots at once, it's just not very strong early on due to the lack of arrows/bows. Can just use throw or a spear in the meantime.

For your backline at least, I think you definitely want mage+archer instead of mage/mage. The mage can enchant arrows to exploit elemental weaknesses, but more importantly you can keep fighting for a long time without relying on potions. Sure in most cases you can run to a door, close it and rest, but in the few really tough places in the game, you can't, and having a character who can constantly spam high damage from range is invaluable in my opinion.