Are rogues useful?

[helborn]

I was wondering besides a ranged attack is a rogue really needed?

[Draken]

my rogue is the only one who can stand a chance against ogres right now... with his backstabbing madness... but honestly... i dont think ANY class is really a necessity... you could have 4 fighters for all the game care (the two on the back rows with spears). It's not like if "you cant get past this puzzle because you dont have X class in your party"

[Rorrik]

Definitely, no class is "necessary", but I find them all to be "useful". The first thing I'd drop is the fighters if I had to give one up and was looking for optimization. Rogues aren't bad in melee.

[Halk]

The most important thing about rogues that's not immediately obvious is they can attack in melee from the back row if they bring assassination up. This means that they can give you a nice steady stream of high damage as a contrast to a mage, who also does damage but is limited by energy.

[jfunk]

Assassination. Period. Rogues are HUGELY useful.

[MoreDread]

a rogue is not 'needed' but in my party the rogue is the best in melee
3 times faster than my fighter, only slightly less damage, but hits more often and gets more critical hits + a triple slash special attack every now and then.
has less hp, but almost never gets hit in melee due to his high evasion skill.
later on he even gets a chance for 1 hit kills

don't underestimate the rogue as a melee class.

everyone in my team dies quite frequently but never him.

he's vulnerable to magic and ranged attacks, but those can usually be dodged by moving around.
and his energy is depleted a little faster because of his rapid attacks.
but even without energy, he deals more damage than my fighter, while taking less.

[snoeseven]

In my opinion, my rogue is the least useful member of my party. One fighter, one rogue, two mages. The fighter does a lot of damage and stays alive in fights. The mages are extremely useful with their spells. The rogue is pretty frail and dies the most frequently. Most likely it's just the build I have going. I put a LOT into dodge and have been trying to get his evasion really high. But the lack of hit points and front row combat just makes him pretty weak, even if he gets hit less. And his damage output is pretty low.

I'd like to have a rogue that did some ranged combat but at this point I couldn't imagine running without two mages. Maybe next playthrough I'll give it a shot.

[Fugu]

Fast attacking, almost never misses, dodges often, does ridiculous backstab damage. You don't need a Rouge but it's sure usefull to have one.

He's best in the backrow though. While he dodges often, putting him in the front is pushing your luck.

[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.

[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)