What are rogues like past velious?

Came over from p99 and currently on teek so dunno much about content past velious. Currently I have a lv 45 cleric on teek but wanted to try a DPS class but I noticed there are like not a lot of rogues running around?

I want to make a rogue but what are they like past velious? I know in velious era, your epic is a huge part of your DPS and a must have but what about past beyond that in like pop all the way to oom?

thanks!

They are still good until OoW and later if it is just about DPS. Melee weps received a buff during LS, going as far back as ToV or TBL iirr. People stopped playing rogues because other classes were able to deal similar DPS but with way more other benefits like much better tanking. The rogue is very weak for moloing, and usually unable to solo blue to red con mobs.

Most of the nice rogue toys/skills, like disarm traps and picklock, do become useless in higher expansions, or in the case of Intimidate, do require AAs to work beyond lvl ~75. Pickpocket attempts can now be even seen in the chat, which is bizarre, so there must be some real rogue haters at the devs. All those changes were direct or indirect nerfs, which made the rogue class much less attractive from expansion to expansion. Rogue mercs (2008, SoD) furthered that by making rogue PCs even more unattractive for groups, but not for raids.

Better team up your cleric with a tank, and make sure that you can handle fleeing mobs ! Only play a weak tanking DPS class like a rogue if you can box a tank or pet tank (aggro ?!), while using a healer merc. Tank mercs are very weak. WAR/ROG or SHD/ROG would be decent boxing teams. Pali does lack DPS, and the heals are not really needed when using a healer merc. The rogue can single pull (blue cons) with smoke bombs (AE mez + memblur), and can snare by an AA and proc weps.

The rogue epic 1.5 - 2.5 (Fatestealer, Nightshade) is much better than epic 1.0, which does become obsolete after TSoV. Usefull even up to max level.

When you can assassinate, the mob is toast i love my rogue

I have a few friends that would like to have a word with you.

Solo, not molo. With a healer merc, much more is possible. Yeah, even yellow cons with some luck. Maybe even red cons for a raid geared rogue. But usually the rogue has to go for blue cons when moloing.

The rogue smoke bomb actually lets you pull yellow con and below.(Agitating Smoke allows 123 and below). We also tend to avoid Ligament Slice because it has the chance of making the mob run away because of the blind component. Nothing like smoke bombing a mob out of crowd only to have it run back into the crowd (albeit slowly). While at lower levels there is a few weapons with snare proc (serrated bone dirk for one), once the poison mats for Messenger's Bane is introduced, your snare is done by utility poison.

I've not played on a TLP to see how much mirrors original EQ upon release, so am not sure if druid root rot is a thing, or shamans and bards running around WW with a trail of dragons is still possible. But, as you work up expansions, even SKs and Necros need a healer/heal merc at some point along the road to 125. And yes, it usually takes a raid geared rogue to molo red con mobs in current live content, but a rogue on top of their game can do it (I am not that good of a rogue, so I don't do it.)

Your post is misleading in that it seems to suggest that rogues become worse over time. While there are expansion periods where rogues aren't top choice for dps, they do come into their own. And there is another post by someone here that also says a dedicated rogue who learns their class and abilities, even the limited ones to start, can maximize their DPS. The same is true for a good portion of classes that people think are unable to survive without a group to molo through content.

My advice to the OP is if rogue is the choice you want, then go for it. Realize there are times where it is difficult to find random groups because you just aren't #1. But, if you make friends early on, form a core group with these people, you will always have a solid team to support you, and you support them.

Sure you can use smoke bombs on yellow cons, but they will resist it often. Just like you can use backstab as a lvl 1 rogue against lvl 125 mobs. It does not make much sense doing that.

Ligament Slice never made a mob running away from my rogues because of a blind effect, and I used it thousands of times. The blind effect does only exist in the skill description, and maybe for PVP. It actually is just an accuracy and movement debuff. The current Ligament Slice line is a consolidation of the removed Dirt in the Eyes and a snare AA, which was also called Ligament Slice afair. I cannot really remember if Dirt in the Eyes caused mobs to run away, but I think that it did so sometimes. That is more than six years ago.

Ligament Slice def still does make mobs run. If its not running it means your standing close enough to him. If your rogue tanking and hit ligament slice on the mob back up, good odds they path away. As long as a tank or aggro pc is close enough at all times they wont run. Its doesnt always seem to happen but it does.

Knifen, Is it possible that Intimidation is making your mobs run away, instead of Ligament Slice. I had mobs run from me when I used Intimidation in my BARD and ROG's spam combat keys. After i took Intimidation out, i haven't seen runners

Rogue intimidation makes a mob run away up until a certain level, when you start to put AAs into it. Those AAs basically make intimidation work differently, where it basically locks the mob up. I have it at 13/13, and it reads:
"This passive ability causes successful uses of your intimidate skill to trigger Shadow's Intimidation XII which increases the damage your target takes from backstab attacks by 60% for 0.00:30 and has the potential to seize targets that are 3 or fewer levels higher than you with fear, leaving them unable to react for 10 seconds."
So, they don't run, they just freeze up in place.

Edit: I think this AA was introduced in RoS, though I could be wrong.

I was getting runners in Pal'lomen, but wasn't able to figure out exact cause. I'll have to go back and see if i can recreate what was causing them to run. i assumed it was intimidation, due to the Fear in the description, but certainly possible that i was wrong. Thx, Sissruukk

Actually, in my experience, yellow con mobs don't resist smoke bombs "often." They have a greater chance at resisting it, but even then it is not that often. A lot of what may look like resists is lag on the server, where you go uninvis dropping the bomb, but it actually doesn't drop and gets interrupted because a mob hit you. Other than terrain issues with it, I hardly have any problems pulling yellow and below.

Knifen answered your second point.

No didnt use intimidation in my testing. But when I do get intimidation to land when I use it its a pure stun/lockdown. They dont move, at least have not moved for me.

I refuse to use Ligament Slice anymore, because it was causing mobs to run on me. My intimidation hasn't done that since the AA line was introduced. No LS, no run. Intimidation is in my spam key, and has been for years. Use Messengers Bane.

So far there is no evidence that mobs do run by Ligament Slice. They would require to have an icon for the blindness spell onto them in the target window, but I never saw that there, and they never did run by blindness. I paid extra attention to that in the last few days, and had used LS on hundreds of mobs without seeing any runner. It does not make sense that they would only run if nobody is close enough to them while having aggro. Only fear spells do make NPCs to run away, and some blind spells do have that as a spell component. LS does not have that.

Hope it continues to work great for you and doesn't go wrong at the worst moment.

For me I just walked up to a leech in Laurions Inn, hit it with my Staff of Viral Flux from a distance. Spammed Ligament Slice till it was in range to land, and watched the leech just dip out.

Did it to a ghost as well, it dipped out.

From melee distance it does work fine, so there is no reason to avoid LS. I found some infos about the lowest paladin blind spell in an old forum article (other forum) and it was described to work like root from a melee distance, but to fear the NPC when it was used from a greater distance than that. I will have to further test that. The rogue has a blind spell line that makes the mobs run, even from melee distance.

What is your main drive to use LS? Do you deal with a mobs that run at low health still? I don't know that that has been an issue in recent expansion, could be wrong. I box 2 rogues for everything and haven't bothered snaring in ages.

It does increase player DPS a little bit, and does reduce NPC DPS. As I do play in older content, fleeing mobs are still a thing. That does make it usefull for every fight.

Long as it's working out for you and you're not seeing the issue I would just carry on. Just know if a mob ever dips out on you unexpectedly, that is why.