Rogues in early TLP - Should they be changed?

Worst dps is hyperbolic. Classic is only one expansion, and they aren't anywhere near the worst. Wizards eat DTs in classic.

Once Rogues get their epics they are solid melee, just not as good as they should be considering how pure their role is.

I love playing rogues, but sadly we are just bad monks at best. Occasionally with a bard, avatar, and visions in kunark I top parses, but its pretty rare. In classic it is mostly impossible. I think the easy answer is either add some shissar poisons or just add a lot of attack to rogues (like 100 or more as item attack). There is no reason we should be similar or significantly worse dps to monks when we have no other job but dps. I think making classic poisons super cheap would also help rogues in some ways.

The thing I am more curious about is why we keep changing TLPs but not adjusting rogue balance. For example, I think the recent autoskill change was just a huge monk buff and a slight rogue buff, making balance even worse. It seems pretty safe to just buff rogues so they get played more.

Rogues are scouts and corpse-runners.

Since there are no new maps on TLPs and we no longer need to corpse run...we no longer need the niche. The real fix includes finding a new niche for rogues that isn't just ripping another class of theirs. Rogues need something, I'll very much agree, but just buffing the DPS isn't the answer because the class will still be a boring 1 trick wonder. Some of the rogue's utility needs to come back. And no, I'm not advocating for the return of corpse runs. They could maybe pick up the ability to CC or something with a longer term stun or something similar.

Love my Rogue in TSS.

If only rogues could at least pickpocket gems without their group being notified, what a breakthrough cutting edge 21st century forward thinking change that would be.

Sounds pretty greedy and selfish.

They could move up the enhanced damage AA for the first 60 levels. Maybe reduce some of the benefit of the 65 and 70 AA's and shift some of that to the earlier levels.

Kinda funny that you bring up Lab. I was a rogue in the guild with Lab and he was working his butt off to stay at the top of the parses ( along with our other rogues) What you probably didn't know was he had to resort to bribing the shaman to get the buffs that the monks were getting to be there. Also if he didn't have a bard in group or if the monks were trying really hard he didn't parse as well. I won't even mention the times the other classes thought it was funny to move the mob so we couldn't backstab. All said Lab is a top player (as were several other rogues in our guild) but your example is only valid for the top 5% of the rogues compared with the top 30% of monks (who in many cases just have to hit autoattack to parse)

Rogues in classic suck, I just did it on Yelinak, and they are terrible dps and have 0 utility.

Rogues in Kunark can actually make the parse, and compete for top 10 or top 5 depending on the fight. But, still have 0 utility.

Going forward, rogues will be competitive, but never shine as a glass cannon DPS. With 0 utility, I can only imagine that they should be that glass cannon DPS.

There is already a system in place to add utility to rogues, poison. With a revamp so classic era poison mirrors the advanced poisons later in game, this could be a robust and deep system for rogues to provide poisons for themselves and group/raid members (i.e., dump the single proc poison of classic and make it the 40(?) proc per application Shissar type poison you see later in EQ).

A rogue can offset bad dps and 0 utility by bringing to the raid/group useful poisons - DD and Dots for dps (fire/poison/ice/etc.); and slow, snare, stun, threat increase, threat decrease for utility. A thought out revamp would add the dps to the rogue that they need (with the self only DD/DoT line of poison) and add back a sense of rogue utility which was removed once corpses no longer had to be looted to reacquire your gear upon death. You can't make corpse drag's important again, but you can give rogues the ability to boost their companions by trading or selling poisons.

double post

One of the biggest issue with rogues is itemization. Dagger ratios are pretty bad from levels 1-75. This is because in that level range, daggers historically used their base damage for backstabs which is why you see Damage and Backstab Damage are equal to one another on earlier weapons.

If they boosted the base damage of these daggers so their ratios were equal to 1hS, 1hB, and H2H of the same tier, then this would mitigate much of the issues here.

Probably wouldn't hurt to bring the first rank of Anatomy back to level 60 (used to be a class feature before it was an AA). Though this wouldn't help with overall damage.

Rogue-like, even.

new AA ability "Hidden Theft" - conceals the pickpocket message. Only costs 2.99/month as a class perk.

More like stupid and counterintuitive because doesn't serve to benefit rogues at all. It would only result in more causes for issues for rogues as I can see even less people taking in rogues if the perception is they are just going to steal all the vendor trash from the group. It would also lead to further petition-quest under the guise of zone and game disruption if groups see outside rogues just pick-pocketing their mobs.

If people feel rogues need a boost in TLP, it needs to be an actual legitimate boost. Not some pointless gimmick that provides zero benefit to the overall class balance.

Rogue only type 7/8 augment that has Pierce and Backstab damage with the aug providing more stats the fewer expansions have unlocked with the stats being 0 once LDoN unlocks. (like 4-5dmg in classic scaling to 0 in LDoN) vendor buyable level 45 req.

Basically a reverse of the effect on newbie weapons that gain in power as you get closer to PoP such as https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=16149 . With the idea that rogues need the most help earlier on and less help as you start getting to PoP+ (though still lagging a bit behind).

I hope you mean slot 4/8 because otherwise that's basically an unusable aug considering all weapons are slot 4 until PoTime. Going forward, all group weapons are slot 4 and raid are slot 8.

while we are at it, can we also do something about the abyssmal mana regen that gut any kind of sustained dps for caster?

and perhaps review the lvl 70s bosses whose resist are so high even a 2.0 wizard using lures on a tash + malo'd target still face 50%+ full resist?

if we are going to balance early EQ... there is A LOT to do

Sure that.

I’d settle for evasive actually working

I think just improving the ratio on one handed piercing weapons would be the best all around fix. I am currently in TSS and they still are always lower than 1HB, 1HS, or H2H. They seem to be getting a little better but still a difference that is easy to notice. Then you have the weapon damage augs. 1HP augs are always lower than the other 3. The ones that drop in frostcrypt for instance. The combo 1HB/1HS/H2H is a straight 4 damage, but the 1HP is 3 straight damage + 1 poison. this makes the gaps in the weapon ratios even farther apart.

P.S.There is something about Prophecy of Ro that all rogues I know hate. All other pure melee classes get an Aura. Rogues get a crap snare trap ability with a long cast and reuse time. Then 2 months later is replace by an instacast CA that lasts for 1 min with a 3 min reuse.