I would rather have an issue with agro due to too much DPS then no agro with no DPS. Agro is easy to control.

Yes and no, we don't want to be a liability either. Mobs that can single round you when you have 40k hps make that a very important thing.

I assumed by your post, u was talking a group setup and not a raid, I havent seen anything one rounding me yet, but then the only raid i havent done is tower so i dont know beyond that.

Give me the dps , i know i can work around the agro. But I wouldnt say dont give me dps because I cant handle the added agro :( That why we have berzerkers

Honestly , usually plenty of ppl die way before the rogues get agro, usually tanks if you are talking raid, always alive at end to drag corpses.

No I was speaking of a raid in this instance. To be fair I am not saying don't give me dps, I am just saying don't forget the aggro management. I was reminded of it by that one parse when the RNG was treating me well. On the average I don't parse anywhere even faintly close to that or pull hate ever. Previous to that actually I can't even remember the last time I yanked hate off a raid tank.

It might not of been one round as I think about it, but it was darn close. Either way I was stunned and couldn't do anything except sit there and curse my misfortune.

I've not posted until I read this as I usually try to keep quiet. But This thread was meant to firstly make aware the devs of the degrading of the rogue class and second to maybe also offer some sensible help to said devs in correcting some of the issues, so I'm going to try and offer my opinions and observations in hopes that it will have some effect.

First and in my opinion foremost: class balance. Please reread this part. Pure melee dps. We are, as a class by and far, one of the worst at soloing even with the new advent of mercs. Warriors, our counterparts are max dps from any angle, same can be said with any other even hybrid caster/melee class. Yes reararc does increase dps of any given class, because of many factors. But we are, in every way rear arc dependant, even if our dps were to be given the love of total frontal dps, we are a weak chain class and never were meant or designed to be in any form or fashion a tanking class, as even our usual adversary, the zerker, can do pretty well.

Class balance should be looked at a little more in depth. Why, you may ask? Well who wants to play a class that doesn't have something going for it! We are not a soloing class for the most part. To do so is in every way slower than most if not all other classes, yes I do even include the priest class in this. VoV line was a great thing for them, and in no way am I calling for nerfs of other said classes, just pointing out they were neglected for a long time and someone saw and followed up with a solution. Let's hope someone does for us the same. We can not tank, we can not kite, to any given degree as well as any other class.

Our dps is centered tightly around our gear and our AA. Our discs have been for a very long time, degraded to almost mean nothing, in comparison to the other things just stated. So as a rogue, we knew, we had to have the best weapons we could get, and the focii to back it up, before we could expect to do any true damage, but once acquired, we did just that. And instead of giving us discs that actually upgraded our dps by more than marginal means, the devs have stricken us with, "you are an aa class, for your dps". How do I get this you may ask? Rogue's Fury is by far our most impressive dps being able to stack with many other discs, such as frenzied stabbing, a disc line that has seen no improvements sadly.

Now, with end game sod being seen, and weapons being acquired our "usual" dps upgrades aren't even there. I am told, thru second hand hearsay that increasing the backstab damage on our daggers, sends them into dps oblivion where no other class can go? If that is the case, then let us look outside the box a bit. Our backstab is our one true class specific trait that is and should not be changed. With even our adversary, the bezerker, he has more than one trick up his sleeve. With cry havoc, bloodlust aura, and a multitude of discs at his disposal, he's more capable of utility than we. We, on the other hand are limited to one, which was "oh grab the rogue, we need DPS".

That was then, this is now, and my biggest fears have come to fruitition. And the rogue is again stuck in a place, where we are passed over for other classes, because they bring dps, AND utility to any given group. And the only reason we were given spots in the past, was due to the fact we brought a LOT of dps to any given group. Now, even rangers can bring more, plus buffs, plus utility, as well as many other classes.

Ok, so what do we do? Do we make a single super powerful short timer disc, which turns us into a burst dps or do we improve upon dagger backstab (if what I mentioned above about backstab dps overpower not being true) and increase our innate chance to hit/crit. Do we move skill timers around, and reduce times of several timers? Do we go the route of making new AA lines for burst and sustained dps or improve on the ones that are already there? Do we up the cap on our + backstab gear to unheard of amounts? Or make some new poisons that allow us by the graces of the RNG to give us the sustained dps? Or be able to assassinate on even raid mobs, with a RNG check?

We are at the mercy of the developers to hear our issues, and hope they are not only heard but addressed. I don't want my most beloved character to be turned into a class unwanted, and unplayed. Please think about this, with so very few tools at our disposal to do things such as kite, buff, and straight out tank, dps was our tool, but now, even that tool is broken.

In sum, I do not disagree with any post being made in this thread, and am glad to see so many with the same concerns and frustration as I've been having, and hope that we as a whole can come up with some good helpful ideas that the devs hear and can use to help us out.

Ok, I'll try it in the big room. I've escaped from eyes in Crystallos before. It's possible that the eyes have sufficiently large aggro radius and quick reaction time that escape will have no appreciable effect - they are the Crystallos security system, after all...

Consider this, though - even if I fail - if escape works when you get out of LOS first... can they really be "ignoring" it? No. Escape will remove me entirely from the mob's hate list, every time. If I am re-acquired nearly instantly, then I guess next time I'll remember to walk behind the 2-story eyeball.

EDIT: 2 for 3 on escaping from eyes while in direct LOS. I ran right up behind one on the long side of the rectangular path, dropped hide and sneak (waited a good 3 seconds before it noticed me) did a 180, ran, and hit escape. Bingo. One thing that might have given me an edge was that the mob casted Ligament Slice on me (which I resisted). Though it's instant cast for us, it may be that the mob halted its pursuit momentarily to perform a casting animation, giving me some cushion. I'll try again after refresh. Note: first attempt I had Bih`Li and lev -- second attempt I was at RS3 and a good ol' dwarven dive-roll. Third attempt I failed to escape. Ligament Slice landed on me and I was unable to get enough distance between me and the mob before he re-acquired me. I was able to /disc nimble and backpedal over the Smokecreen trap I had laid as a backup... To me, this is acceptable. I watched my combat status as it went down - I went from combat to cooldown for about a full second, then combat again - so definitely not "ignored" ...

Convinced yet that you might be mistaken?

With the SUSTAINED dps that monks, rangers, berzerkers, wizards, magicians and necro's can put out today (group and raid), I highly doubt this arguement holds water.

Rogues are like the kid that got in trouble at school on the first day, the rest of the year the teacher has kept their eyes on us so we wouldn't get out of line, while the rest of the class has torn down the room.

We used to be the best sustained and burst dps, but in Sony's effort to make sure they didn't overpower us, they basically nerfed us by restricting our dps upgrades (through poor AA's and poor weapon upgrades).

This is exactly what i think too.

I suspect it's our burst dps getting out of hand due to excessive stacking with other classes (shaman and berserkers in particular) that caused stagnation of our "base" (ie sustained) dps. This is a problem of balancing for burst rather than balancing around sustained and tweaking the discs / stacking to make sure burst dps is appropriate.

As far as the escape issue goes. Isn't this basically a non-issue? If you walk up uninvis to a kos mob it'll attack you. Either that's "soon" or immediately, depending on various things like lag and the timing of the server tick. I'm sure we've all noticed before how sometimes you can just get away with running past something fast - that's just lucky timing on the server checks. Why is this relevant? Well it basically means if you're stood next to a kos see-SoS mob and use escape the result is going to be variable. Doing one test and claiming it to be "the truth" is flawed.

Personally I think escape works just fine in regards to see-SoS mobs. Where I get royally peed off with it is when I use escape and some caster miles away lands a spell on me instantly breaking it. I shouldn't need to resist or to use AAs to try and negate this. It should simply work. Vanishing should mean the caster has no target to land spells on. The only defense against this currently is either mez, when it works, or attempting to get sufficient distance away. That usually works, but sometimes it's counterproductive as you then may have agro on even more mobs too.

On the note of escape, I think it would be cool if escape refreshed upon death like HarmTouch/LayHands doThat's a hilarious similie. haha

Isn't it a metaphor?

Well obviously I won't hinge an argument on my poor, outdated knowledge of grammar (especially considering I just spelled "simile" wrong) so let's see what Wiki says:

Ur-Floxiz Lochmaul in 83s, 8895k @107166dps --- wiz 1065k @16135dps --- necro 607k @7986dps --- wiz 600k @9531dps --- mage 584k @7295dps --- zerk 532k @6563dps --- rog 482k @6096dps --- zerk 462k @6001dps ---

Wiz 16 kdps and was 50% mana after the fight, no 7th veteran clicked = lol (and no aggro for 1m30 with silent casting)

Necro = 2nd on a burn fight = lol

Sorry no other word come in my mind , just lol

Ps : i was not here for the fight, was ld

What weapons did the rogue in question have? Don't get me wrong you won't touch that wizard and that is part of the issue. However 83s with cryst weapons and a proper dps group the rogue still should of easily pulled 9-10k.

mb weapon + augment and tier5 group offhand, not a very good set i agree, yes we can do 9 to 10k i agree too but the necro wil stay at his dps for 10+ min (and our dps would drop massively during this time cause of no disc up) and the wiz even sitting and watching tv just after this burn can wait nearly 5min for us to be at his dmg.

one thing this stagenation and neglect has allowed me to do is to lvl up my wizzie to near raiding status lmao

No worries I was just looking to see why the rogue was so low.

same here i level a wizzy atm.

I'm currently playing a "casual group rogue" with a bunch of RL friends. One is a wizzie and we're stopping at 75 to gain AA's.

As you can imagine, parsing is basically a full embarrassment. I have almost all offensive AAs (and I realized I started wasting AA's on letting me "gimp backstab" from the front - wtf? Why am I spending AAs to backstab from the front? Thats not even a "back"stab anymore now is it. Its a front-stab.)

The evolution to "utility" was a bad idea (not to mention casters will always have way more utility than me). Please take away my silly 6 second mez. Please, NO more ridiculous "once per 10 minute super damage" buttons.

Giving rogues a new high-end dagger is a complete non-solution for the casual gamer.

The 75 wiz I witness crits for 20k every few fights. Why is assassinate looked at as so powerful? I have my assassinate AA maxed for my level - I think I've seen it go off, um, never.

Improve skills - take the leash off assassinate and triple attack. Up backstab altogether.

Seriously, rogues are a one-trick pony who aren't very good at their trick.

good to have the feeling of a casual gamer, at mid/high end level things are very hard for rogues (no true utility and average dps class now) but for a group rogue this is worse... ive a friend rogue who is equipped in group gear and his dps is awful at level 85 with group weapons.

monks ahead with their new disc now (many parses prove it on veteran lounge and mage forum for example)
So we are behind zerkers, mages, wiz necros and monks and sometimes druids/rangers.

****FED UP****

we need something

This is what torques me the most.... When i was doing the SoF illusion quest when i was 81 or 82 and going for the skull off Commander Koth in FoB, fully raid buffed, with my journeyman cleric merc and burning my Lithe Disc II... Koth killed me fast (and i consider myself fairly well geared with mid-high defensive AAs wearing CoA + armor) So... i switch to my 67 ranger at the time who has virtually no AAs except maxxed bow dmg and the AA snare and i solo Koth no problem without a scratch who conned VERY red to my ranger (btw when he waxxed me on my Rogue Koth conned DB) granted took most all my mana and about 5 mins to kite him to death... but still

i mean... where's the justice in this? i'm a stinkin 85 Rogue decent mix of mid-level raid and high end group gear and i can't kill a DB yet here comes my 67 ranger gimpy alt and i can drop a very red con without a hitch

Ya thats why i started my mage figure she can solo all the stuff my rogue can't and maybe get me some items that my rogue still cant solo.

I'm in a Crystalos-ish guild. Our rangers are beating me some of the time on pure burn fights, and monks are coming very close. Rangers are even coming close on sustained fights. I have Crystalos dagger+aug, and Speedblade+aug, and max AA. I usually have bard/shammy/zerker in my dps group. I think I'm timing clicks/discs/whatnot properly. Some of the melee dps competition doesn't have nearly the gear/AA I do too.

It makes me weep. The other classes have more utility all around, and can dps about the same as I do.

Exactly why I started a shaman. My shaman can earn 7 AA's per Lessons burn in Valdeholm (all deep blue or even con mobs) - soloing. Or he can earn 2% regular exp per kill during a Lessons burn at lvl76. All this while on a mount and 95% risk free (the other 5% is when I decide to do something stupid).

Not sure what a rogue can do solo to make AA's exp, as when ever I tried I got tired of dieing.