Even in older EQ rogues aren't all that far behind. Y'all are acting like a rogue is 50% the dps of a monk. What rogues are you playing with are that bad at the game? Rogues from kunark to PoP should be neck and neck with monks. Any rogue that's more than 15% behind is just bad at the game. Ego, that's all this is, dudes with big ego's thinking "Muh class should be best because I said so" or "My class is better than yours cause numbers" Who cares as long as you're enjoying the time you spend with the people you spend it with lol Necro's on Mischief right now obliterate everyone and you know what? I LOVE it. I'm all for seeing a caster take over, they've been in a bad spot for 2 years lol The Kinesthetic & Deadly precision lines are a 5 min CD for rogues, use em on go and wait for your big burns to pop up. Congratulations, you just learned cooldown management. Now if you're a rogue: Go out there and gitgud or just stop complaining. The class is fine. Your ego isn't.
"Here is a specific change that has hurt rogues compared to in-era behavior with a possible solution." "git gud, this is all ego" Buddy, I'm just asking for the functionality rogues had in 2002 to be restored. It barely affects anything in raids, and is a minor boost to soloing (which is a joke) and group situations with difficult aggro management or when the rogue has to tank. This isn't a class competition thing, despite you trying to make it one. The ask is simply to restore Backstab functionality from in-era.
Soloing a yellow mob does not make you balanced. Was in a guild back in the beginning and we had many rogues - did great in raiding - they didn't solo back then either (not asking for that) As a pure melee class with few bells or whistles (CR, traps, poisons etc - aren't really important in the game) They should be top melee dps IMO with monks and zerkers closely behind
I played as a rogue in the Luclin to OoW era. I would not recommend a rogue to anyone. The class is fun if you can get groups in your time frame. If you cannot find a group it is more painful than any other class. Maybe make SoS, Escape, and Frontal Backstab (Call it Something Else) part of their starting package in Kunark? It is not all about DPS but what they could bring to a group.
And a few rogues still insisting pickpocket is from a separate loot pool (Myth since 1999), doesn't help!
It's a fun Classic/Kunark conundrum. Rogues stink without their epic. Rogues are pretty good with their epic, until Velious makes it obsolete. Rogues need high pickpocket to get their epics. No one wants rogues pickpocketing in groups. Rogues can't solo. Fun stuff!
The reality is that any monk can solo/molo - get groups - parse well with crap gear and basic weapons. For a rogue to even approach this they have to be "raid geared". If one can't see the imbalance in this I contend it is due to myopia. One only has to look at any population of TLP's from as far back as Mangler to see whether the players think the rogue is a viable class - players vote by what class is their main
I don't think looking at population is the best way to approach this, actually. Every TLP has had a ton of boxed and botted accounts, and rogues don't work especially well in boxed setups compared to casters. Casters generally are overpopulated because of the ease of boxing, especially magicians and enchanters. I'd say the best way to look at it would be raiding rosters. How many rogues are raiding in guilds that don't bring alts or boxes on their raids? The last time I raided, we had one rogue with more than 25% raid attendance.
My favorite part of being a rogue in later expansions is how hostile the game is to you. Reverse damage shields are awesome when you swing 5-10 times a second.
You make a couple of good points. Setting aside caster DPS from melee DPS in box/botted groups (a bit of apples and oranges if you will) you will see overwhelming numbers of boxed Monks - to a lesser degree zerkers and to almost zero rogues. Positioning, kicks and discs are key factors. And yes raiding guild monk / zerker / rogue percentages are very skewed quickly downward in the order I have listed. Many who feel rogues need help avoid specifics such as raid vs. grouping vs. boxing as it removes focus from an overall opinion that rogues need improvement in all facets of gameplay.
Noone wants pickpocketers prelooting. This generates a stigma against the class. Also, other DPS classes have utility. Bards are clearly superior lockpickers.
I group with Rogues all the time. I figure it is mostly because no one else will have them. There are simple fixes, I think. #1, pickpocket in groups splits loot, it is level appropriate reward, and comes from a different pool. #2 a different path to skill gain just like a lot of the other skills have, like sense heading or tracking. Is there another character that has to break out of combat to max a skill? I can't think of one. Stuff like disarm, taunt, kick, ... all fire w/o sandbagging. It could be as simple as allowing Rogues to Pickpocket during combat for skill gain but unsuccessfully if not split the proceeds. A couple of fancy things would be nice, like a Shadow Step type spell to automatically put the Rogue in position to Back Stab. Let's face it, most people do not play the Rogue to their fullest potential. If there is an anti social class in the game, it would be Rogue. It isn't all of our jobs to figure this kind of stuff out for them. I mean the first characters to make to 50 in the game were rumored to be a pair of Rogues. It is just this simple, if two Rogues group and position themselves properly, one or the other will be back stabbing 100% of the time. It's not rocket science.
Rogue-specific version of Battle-leap that puts Rogues at the rear of the mob in melee range in stealth mode ready for a sneak attack. Call it Thief's Surprise or Brigand's Relocation maybe.
I agree with some of your post, but this is an issue IMO. In a group situation, that means one of the rogues isn't backstabbing, and in that case you're better off with essentially any other class. Even a bard maximizing personal DPS should be competitive with a rogue attacking from the front pre-Chaotic Stab.
