Rogues in early TLP - Should they be changed?

As someone whose basically mained a rogue for all but like 3 months of play time... rogues need all sorts of work, but I don't expect any of it to ever get done. I'd be happy enough having backstab positional reliance reduced as it feels extra terrible that I still have to deal with it, but now I also get outdps'ed by classes that have no similar requirement.

That said, for real don't roll a rogue unless you already know what you are getting into. There is no compelling reason to choose a rogue beyond being able to walk all over the place if you've never seen all the zones and such since you can explore freely with shroud of stealth.

All classes are not meant to be equal my dudes.

There's a ton of zones/expansions I haven't seen after PoP. I've been tossing around the idea of rolling as a Rogue instead of cleric, on my next TLP.

As a mom, being able to safely AFK whenever I want is a godsend.

I just have no idea what the life of a Rogue is like past 60, never got a Rogue epic yet, haven't played one past Luclin, etc. So I can't comment on a point of view past that point.

The only issue with this is that, as a rogue, you cannot do anything outside of a group - unless you're soloing LBs and greens I suppose.

Rogues are a lot of fun if you like straight up upper-tier DPS, they have a small amount of situational raid utility such as pre-targeting of mobs & some minor corpse recovery, there are also a few situational raid mechanics that employ Rogues such as unlocking doors and disarming traps but overall they are a very tightly focused class.

I have played since '99 but I quit live back in 2008 (at level 80 just prior to SoD launching) and I have to say that I do prefer the later era of EQ over the classic era, lots of players enjoy the simplicity of the earlier eras but I like the depth & the expanded abilities of the later era, some find that confusing or too difficult for them to manage, others dislike the more complex group & raid mechanics of the later game & prefer the more brainless tank & spank style of the early game, but if you enjoy having things to do the later eras are really loaded with stuff.

That's true that all classes are not meant to be equal, but all classes are meant to be balanced.

Make an AA ability that unlocks alongside the flat damage increase AA's for all melee classes, except it only applies to backstab.

Is adding unlocking AA's tied to levels hard?

Monks have all the dps and immense utility... being able to fd is huge... being able to pick lock is something one of the 9 box bards nearby can do.

Its been brought up before, but I think it really boils down to rogues needing a dps boost. They shouldn't be equal given their poor utility. This is a big reason why raid guilds are filled with monks and rogue piercers go to rolls.

new management, maybe we can make this happen?

Melee weapons ratios are bad in Classic and Kunark. They don't get any good until top end of Velious. Monks had their h2h table adjusted at point, so they avoid this problem. Rogues get hit the hardest because they don't anything else to the table.

I personally think the DPS imbalance problems are worse with how bad silk DPS is for all four 70 capped expansions (OoW-PoR), the caster classes are pretty non-existent on the DPS charts for that entire run. Beastlord / Mage / Necro pets are well below what they should be. However that is a deeper era in the game so it get less attention.

Yeah the rogue damage gap doesn't even rate compared to casters in the level 70s. Imagine being a max AA BiS wizard who's getting dunked on by a half naked melee that was rolled 3 weeks ago. Cause I've seen that happen.

How about just give a small flat backstab mod to all piercing weapons. Add bite of the shissar to rogue vendors near rogue guildmasters. Make bite of the shissar do A lot less damage though. Starting at level 20 it does 50 damage with -resist poison and very little aggro generation. Level 40 it does 75 damage. Level 50 it does 100 damage. Level 60 it does 150 damage. Then just keep that as the last level the poison is sold for.

Doubt this would ever be implemented it's too much work, but I think it could help.

Since backstab damage is its own stat now uncoupled from actual weapon damage, I think you could just do an across the board 1-2 point increase to the backstab damage stat of piercers in early expansions just to get rogue damage to a better place, and this shouldn't impact anything else in the game.

You are way off; We had TLP rogues that crushed in Classic and specially in Kunark. I remember a rogue named Lab that would consistently be in the top 3 in classic and top in Kunark. Get the perfect bard group , get resist gear instead of str/dex gear, stay in AoE's; He would crush the damn parses during classic era with classic gear.

It can be done, they just need a player behind the character that wants to min/max, that will fight for a bard group with druid wolf forms and that is willing to stay in the AoE's.

You can do all that as a rogue and the monk that does the same thing will crush you every time in classic.

Sounds like that Rogue was a better player then the other DPS classes in your guild. Unless resists are playing a serious issue wizards and necros should be regularly out parsing rogues.

Bards, Paladins, Ranger, Shadow Knights, Warriors also feel lack of DPS from bad weapon itemization in the earlier expansion. They just have other roles or tools so it isn't as large of an issue.

I played a rogue all the way til House of Thule on the last TLP. There are a lot of issues with rogues that carry on into later expansions.

1. Backstab damage more often than not hits for way less than it's max, thus one big reason we are lower on the parse than monks etc. While it's super enjoyable in PoP to see those 1200-1600 backstabs, more often than not they're 300-500. And that's with ~1350 attack. Monks are less reliant on their special ability to have high RNG to max their dps.
2. Ratio of rogue weapons is trash compared to other DPS weapons. Look at the epic 2.0's.
Rogue: 27/19
Monk: 36/20
This trend carries forward through the later expansions as well.
3. Positional requirements: A lot of boss fights later on make it very difficult to always be in position to hit your backstabs efficiently. We are at the mercy of the tank quite often and reliant on other DPS not to pull aggro. Monks and Berserkers can do almost all their optimal DPS with minimal interference from position.
4. Poisons: Poisons don't really get their revamp until around Underfoot. While these poisons are very powerful, and keep rogues up there on the parse with monks/berserkers, they are hindered on a lot of fights. Take Brekt for example. His AOE silence affects poison procs, essentially neutralizing about 20% of rogue damage. No other melee dps class has their DPS completely neutered by silences and other anti-magic mechanics.
5. Auras: While monks, berserkers, and multiple other classes get useful auras. The rogue option is a targetable snare trap that serves almost no purpose on raids. We do get an accuracy buff in DoDH, but it's not the same as Aura's.
6. Utility: While sneak / hide is amazing, especially with SoS. It's lackluster compared to the utility monks get. FD, Mend are just a few. They also get a self-cleanse which is insanely powerful. Rogues get a poison only removal that is on a much longer cooldown. Escape is a nice option for rogues, and can be used relatively frequently in later expansions, to it's credit.
The one thing that rogues do have over other DPS classes with their utility, is the ability to make poisons after the revamp that are usable by other classes. The tank aggro poison, and 7-10k dd poisons for other DPS classes is the one non-selfish skill we possess, though it requires a lot of expensive and relatively uncommon materials to make those poisons.

I'm sure there are other things, and don't get me wrong, rogue is a fun class to play, its been my main on every server to date, even back in live. But there are definitely times where the frustration and feeling of inadequacy trump the enjoyment.

Honestly, the issues later on decrease over time, but they are still there.

As for TLP, the one suggestion I would make to make rogues viable, is to just implement the post-revamp poisons in early TLPs. The low level ones would add just enough to a rogue to make them feel like they aren't completely inadequate. Bite of the shissar is the first poison I ever use on a TLP; which comes in Luclin. Mostly because it's the first poison we have that applies an actual buff. And it's pretty much the only poison you'll use until the revamp, unless you're using utility snares, etc. in group. Having a one-proc use poison that strikes on the first strike against the boss is essentially useless, and also a nice way to pull aggro early on if you attack too soon.

hehe, all this talk about Rogues getting a damage boost. Just doesn't happen by design. I'm trying to remember a Rogue in game that even tried to make it up the parse list for DPS. Typically they treat backstab like it gives them cooties. In effect, it does since drawing aggro is pretty much something they avoid because by design, they don't have the AC to hold up.

Maybe that is the answer though. I mean we have a real generation of Rogues, 20+ years who have avoided doing anything that draws MOB attention to them. I'd think it would be a good idea to attach something like guilt free backstab to a cool down period of 10 minutes when they can't steal. Kind of the whole idea of backstab right? Unseen, they don't know or suspect it, BANG! Who was that?

Damage/delay fix on 1h pierce weapons and making backstab a free swing if you're facing your enemy would take care of it imho. Maybe some backstab modifier too so 1hP don't just become the weapons all melees use

I think they should add a damage bonus to mounted combat.