For the new TLP I plan to main Rogue.

Heck yeah, FTE is the real end game! Who needs balanced classes when you can be the fastest looter in town? Time to get my clicking finger ready.

Rogues are fine except for classic really, and then maybe they could use some buffs to backstab damage and poisons. They only look so weak because classes like monk are OP in comparison.

Rogues main problem is just the lack of decent daggers, but once they get epic and sky weapon they're actually fine.

I played a DE rogue with basically two serrated bone dirks (snare) and a rubi bp solo until 52. Then got some blood points. Back in classic without poisons. (no) str at char creation too.

It took a few months to get there..Definitely not a power house. Had to choose mobs and exp spots very carefully.

It was a great class in classic. The truth is everyone is overpowered now. And rogues are just a little less OP.

At the time I played mine. I enjoyed being on a weaker class. Everything was more dangerous. Mid lvl camps where more challenging. I really felt like the underdog and enjoyed using all the tricks I could to just survive. It was classic EQ super hard mode.

That said it's 2023. Rogue isn't a good character for a casual who wants to see it all and hit level cap with the first wave unless you have a good crew. With very little effort to be top dog.

It is viable for a casual who just wants to play if you don't worry about at a disadvantage. Set your own challenges!

It's really bad, and this is coming from someone who leveled 2 Rogues to 60 when Thornblade and Mischief launched.

You can have the best loot in the entire game and still get out-damaged by the super tanky monk class who is running around wearing nothing but cloth armor. I know this from firsthand experience because on Mischief I had easy access to Veeshan's Peak loot during Kunark, and the best daggers in the game during Velious, and I still couldn't come close to the DPS of the Monks, who were way tankier, had FD, mend etc. It felt really, really, really bad and I don't recommend this to anyone. By the time Rogues actually start to catch up in damage, Rangers start to become archers who can easily out-damage Rogues from Range, and then PoP comes out and everyone stops playing TLP anyways.

Just the cold hard truth that a lot of people don't like to admit.

But like I said, people keep saying Rogues need a damage buff, but the reality is, it would be much simpler to simply nerf Monk fists. Because it's not just Rogues who get significantly out-classed by Monks, it's virtually every melee class in the entire game. It just affects the other melee classes less because they serve other purposes, such as tanking, pulling, utility (tracking, buffs, mana song etc), unlike Rogues who are relegated to doing nothing other than raw DPS and not even being good at it.

But even with a nerf, Monks would still be fine, because let's keep it real, even with classic fists, Monks still have access to the best ratio weapons in the entire game.

Edit: People implying that Rogues are fine once they get their epic are comical. A 15/25 dagger simply cannot compete with a triple attack monk who is dual wielding 23/26 fists. Towards the end of PoP Rogues start to catch up to Monks. Monks still out-damage them, but the gap is much smaller. Unfortunately, Monks are still way better tanks and pullers and then berserkers come out which ultimately make Rogues obsolete anyways.

Do yourself a favor and never play a Rogue on TLP.

Edit 2: Another thing I forgot to mention too. On TLP, Rogues don't have classic stealth like they did 20 years ago. You know how on P99, Rogues are great for CRs since they have the best stealth in the game? This isn't the case on TLP. The majority of zones have mobs that have see invis, making Rogues kind of useless for CRs until Planes of Power comes out and they get SoS.
I remember not even being able to get passed the gates of Karnor's Castle without an escort because all the Drolvarg Sentries have See Invis, and having to use my Shadow Knight to do CRs in Sebilis, because 50% of the Frogs will see through your invis, and at least a Shadow Knight can take a hit and FD. Rogue just dies instantly.

Actually felt like Rangers were a better stealth class on TLP than Rogues, mainly because of the fact that they can run at full SoW speed while invis, lull mobs that see through invis, and invis their entire group to get from point A to B, meanwhile Rogues are waddling around all slow and can't get passed the mobs who have see invis, and don't even have a superior level of stealth until 5 expansions in and a ton of AA have been spent.

Edit: Rogues can't backstab from the front on TLP the way they could in classic or on P99, and even after level 55, rogues no longer double backstab every single time like they did on classic, and like they do on P99. This means you miss out on a lot of damage completely as mobs move around and aggro shifts about.

Also Double backstab probably "procs" 25% of the time, at best, and misses half the time. Just not the class you're likely recalling from your childhood. Trust me, it was the most disappointing thing ever, as someone who mained a Rogue 20 something years ago.

Edit: You'll also have to spend a hefty amount of money on poisons now (you know how no one used poisons 20+ years ago, and no one uses them on P99?). That's no longer the case with TLP. You have to spend an insane amount of plat to keep your weapons coated in poison, and you will still get out damaged by monks and by quite a large margin. (Is there even another class who has to spend this much money to play the game? I never spent nearly as much on reagents on my Enchanter or Cleric, I know that much.)

The poison thing would be cool if it really put Rogues at a major advantage over other classes, but it's like nah, you're just going to have to dump time and money into this so you can still be subpar.

The biggest challenge is the fact that literally no one will want to group with you unless they are extremely desperate for a puller.

Care to explain to me how a 15/25 Rogue dagger is undisputed when Monks with epics are dual wielding 23/26 fists and have triple attack? lmao. Like dawg, have you actually played the Rogue class on a TLP? If this was P99 you would be correct however. Rogues are fine, but Monk fists being super un-classic, makes them terrible in contrast.

You need to min/maxing the rogue class before you make a deathknell post. Focus on resist, get in the right groups, fight for buffs stop giving us a bad rep in classic, unfortunately based on your post, you've never played with a competitive player rogue. Rogues are the top overall parser in combined raids. No one comes closed except for rangers that can dot every single mob in luclin+. I had no problem being the top 3 rogue/melee fairly often (wizards broken in non sky raids..) in classic and once Kunark drops it skyrockets; you will never win vs a disc burning monk in a very short fight , but rogues excel in really long fights since we have more discs to reuse, and we excel in more continual fights when everyone has their crap down, pending endurance bars. Learn how long fights take so you can abuse your 5 min disc prior to your big burn.

Try the tips that I posted..they work

-Rogues have a higher attack thanks to the epic +40 attack worn vs. monks.
- Rogues have shorter disciplines in kunark which can cycle in longer fights as long as fights last more than 5 minutes.
-Rogues normally have their epic complete in classic minus 2-3 steps on day one of Kunark which means we spike faster since we complete the epic first.
-Rogues have less competition of gear since there's less of us, so we get geared faster..
-Rogues can use insta DD poisonsx1 use that do 300-500dmg based on mighty buff +DD buff procs
-Rogues also get triple attack
-Rogues will rarely leave group so they can continually pump dps, while the monks have to pull , you might die, lose all buffs endurance etc.. we're way more consistent due to our roles .

So this TL;DR basically equates to "yes, Rogues get out-damaged by monks, but Rogues also start to deal better damage towards the end of Luclin" ? Because I would agree with that.

Again you're just insulting me while citing information from Planes of Power (when Rogues actually get triple attack). I already stated that Rogues start to catch up towards the end of PoP, but are literally hot garbage before then.

A world does not exist where a 15/25 dagger is suddenly out damaging a monk dual wielding two 23/26 fists with triple attack. Yes. Rogues do get better towards the end of PoT. I 100% agree with this. But they are literally just catching up to Monks at that point, which is funny, considering how much more monks bring to the table.

But thank you for agreeing that Classic through Luclin, Rogues are pretty terrible. I guess we agree on that, and that's the point I was trying to drive home so the OP doesn't waste his time leveling a character literally no one will want to group with unless they are absolutely desperate for a puller and there's no Rangers, Bards, Monks or literally any other melee who are LFG.

If anyone wants to play a Rogue on TLP, I highly recommend waiting until Planes of Power come out, when Rogues actually do get triple attack and start to get weapons that are close in ratio to Monks bare fists.

Also this was a comical statement. I played on Mischief. Which means I had better gear than any rogue in TLP history. I literally put Ragebringer in a bag as soon as I got it during Kunark because it parsed significantly less damage than a Feverblade mainhand, and RSSS offhand (had a 41% PoSky belt, so didn't really need the haste from RB and the +ATK still parsed significantly less damage due to the fact that fever blade proc's non-stop, and RSSS is just a much better ratio). Of course I macro'd backstab to use Ragebringer. I also have a level 60 Rogue on P99 Green and Blue, and love the class so much that I have multiple max level Rogues on WoW too (different factions to play with different friends).

I think that's why I'm so bitter with what they've done to Rogues on these TLPs. I remember how Rogues were really supposed to be in a true classic. As they are on P99. Not this non-sense where you can play perfect, have the best gear in the game, and still get out-damaged by a under-geared monk who is face-tanking mobs. It's just a really bad feeling.

And you didn't even address any of the other problems. Like Rogue stealth being useless before PoP is not classic. Rogue stealth worked in virtually every zone, starting at level 1, in true classic, and on P99 (since it's actual classic).

Do Rangers also have to dump thousands of plat into reagents to coat their weapons just to be able to attack things with their subpar damage?

Why does double backstab no longer work every single time, as it did in classic, as it still does on P99?

Like they did all kinds of things to make other classes like Wizards, Rangers, even Paladins way more viable in Classic / Kunark (can't Paladins resurrect at level 9 now? lmao). But meanwhile, not only do Rogues get no improvements from 20+ years ago, but they've actually been nerfed into the ground with a stealth that no longer works in half the zones, frontal backstab removed, double backstab badly gimped, monks given insane fists that are literally on par with end-game PoP loot. Like what the actual ***** lmao.

-Are you new to TLP"s? have you actually played a rogue in a guild that actually clears content in era and gets gear ? I'm not bashing you , I'm telling you the experience of a rogue in four TLP's, I'm not talking about Planes of Power. I think the problem is you. This is not Project 99. You probably had very conformist rogue players that didn't want to min-max their character out . I'd be happy to show you all my classic logs, but this is not a log war.
-Rogues and monks get triple attack in classic
-Rogues are amazing through classic through Luclin, you just haven't met one yet =].

There's so much misinformation here man; that's probably why you didn't do so well. but its ok - go and test copy your character then go to the arena on test server and parse with the dummys.. and get your own answer. You can parse with all the Mighty Buffs on to see the real damage on raid mobs based on your era.

Ragebringer is the king of Kunark along with RSS and feverblade (if disease lands its way better offhand).
-Feverblade does proc a lot but it gets resisted 90% on all raid content since there's rarely any disease debuff..(I used to beg Shamans do to Insidious Decay all the time) it comes nowhere near a ragebringer due to lower damage backstab, less attack, and less main hit +bonus weapon damage. I've parsed RB+RSSS // Sky+RB // RB+Fever // Fever+RB. Do your own testing, and come up with your own conclusions

Nerf monks. Buff classic poisoning and rogue stealth. Make poisoning easier (vendor bought or innate class abilities).

I beat monks all the time on parses.

I don't understand these hyperbolic takes that rogues are garbage. In my experience in early eq the very best rogues are only 5-10% behind the very best monks everything being optimal. How is that worthless? What does that mean for the various other dps classes that can't reach the rogues numbers?

Is it just insecurity? You cant play a class unless it is the very best?

I'm sure anyone who actually has raided through these expansions on TLP know both that Rogues are very strong and that yes they are 5/10/15% behind Monks in all eras. This changes to Rogue barely ahead around TBM/EOK.

Rogues pre-OoW are bad for many reason. Bad is really an understatement in the Classic-Velious era. They are downright awful. I think what happens is rogue mains who love their class tend to put on blinders or do not play the game a lot as a rogue. The main issue with rogues contrary to popular belief is not their DPS but literally everything else.

Most classes in EQ do a couple of things well or do a lot of things okay. Rogues can do one thing and they do it okay and that is do damage to mobs. Rogue DPS is in fact most of the time really underrated and while they are not shining on boss encounters they are the ones often doing a lot of the heavy lifting on your trash clears which is what a lot of early raiding is. But rogues have absolutly no utility and this is their biggest drawback. This means rogues can not function unless in very specific environments. As a bard main I can do almost any activity in EQ decently. I can solo, group, or raid. I have access to damage, buffs, and crowd control. As a bard I can thrive in almost any environment but I pay for it in that I am never going to look the best at doing anything except maybe running around. A rogue can only do damage but on top of that their damage is gated behing being in a group because you have to be behind the mob. No other DPS class in EQ has such a oppressive restriction. In addition to that restriction Rogues like monks require force multipliers. A rogue without buffs is worst than a naked warrior and is probably going to be out DPSed by everything except pure support classes. In order for a rogue to function you have to have a ton of support and even with all that support you can still be outshined in your role by classes who can do much more than just DPS. This is why even in groups rogues do not perform that well because you need a very specific group in order to make a rogue look good meaning the only time rogues can look good is on raids. The only silver lining to that is if you are going to specialize in one aspect raids is probably the best one.

Rogues are in desperate need for utility they need to be able to contribute to a group or themselves in some way outside of DPS. All the current rogue utility is pretty gimmiky (pick lock/disarm trap). Rogues really deserve some type of single target long duration stun proc. It would synergize so perfectly with their kit. As they could use it for holding aggro if they needed to tank and rogues already have quite a few tools to offtank in a pinch in addition they have evade so they can make use of the stun procs without drawing aggro if they chose to go that rout. in addition It would give them the ability to solo more effectively by allowing them to incorporate BS.

I don't think it was a gear issue. I had BIS everything Classic through Velious (this isn't much to brag about on Mischief, a Rogue could basically get the best Rogue gear in the game for dirt cheap, and I did buy some Kronos). I toggled primal weapons in and out with a macro to insure I always had Avatar and moved backstab to the center of my screen so I would always see when it was off of CD, even had a second hotkey for backstab added to my mouse side button that way I could strafe with WASD without having to take my fingers away from the strafe key to press the backstab button (this makes a huge difference if anyone reading this is struggling to land backstabs on mobs that are constantly shifting).

People loved grouping with me because I was a great puller, and my low DPS didn't matter since I usually just left mobs at the group and immediately went back to pull something else. So it wasn't an entirely miserable experience for me, but it did irk me to realize how under-performing Rogues are when compared to Monks.

I still don't know how a Rogue is supposed to be competitive with Monk DPS during Classic, Kunark, or Velious. Luclin maybe, but Monks will still have a much easier time and won't have to worry about positional requirements. If y'all are talking about Planes of Power, maybe? But I remember around the time Rangers became archers, most of my Rogue friends on Mischief actually re-rolled as Rangers instead.

Would like to see these logs though. I genuinely don't want Rogues to be bad. I just know they are, and can't fathom a Classic, Kunark or Velious era Rogue even being remotely competitive with a non-afk Monk.

I will say to OP though, that guilds will probably invite you and give you all of the Rogue loot since there won't be many Rogue mains. On Mischief, most guilds would rather just not have a Rogue at all and simply loot the Rogue gear to sell in EC tunnel or the Bazaar, but on the TLP I played before that, I had guilds actively trying to recruit my Rogue simply because they were tired of seeing the Rogue loot rot since most of it couldn't be traded.