Namtar: still a pushover

[q 3]

Alternate title: Rogues: still stupidly overpowered





Now that the shameless bragging is out of the way, I'd like to note that on my current playthrough (after a ~4 month hiatus) I've found Rogues to be, if anything, more powerful than ever. (Granted, my playstyle heavily favors Rogues, and I'm probably much more skilled with them than I am with, say, the Monk.) Perhaps even moreso than the days when Orcs stacked base damage and CYDSTEPP was king. The biggest change, I think, is how easy it is to acquire max HP. On this run, I got an extra, what is it, +50? from JJ, which allowed for some fairly silly tactics even before taking Chaos Avatar. GG is, perhaps, even more broken, since you can amass tons of HP right from the start with him, and while that means clogging your inventory, you'll get to Enlightenment pretty easily and then with the right glyph (usually HALPMEH, sometimes BURNDAYRAZ or PISORF) you can just crush everything. Earthmother isn't quite as overwhelming, but her health boon is nothing to scoff at. Taurog won't give you extra HP, but repeatable death protections on a Rogue (with an extra +5 base and +20% bonus) are just nasty. And then you have Warrior's Pact, all the various HP-boosting items (which are even more accessible for purists, thanks to the lovely bank system), etc.

All of this is not to complain, or even suggest changes. It's perfectly fine to have some classes stronger than others, especially when it's a class that is still hard to master and requires a fair amount of strategy to overcome his weakness. But as I recall, the primary impetus for "fixing" CYDSTEPP in the first place was because Rogues essentially broke it, and the way the game is now, Rogues are just as broken as ever. I do still think that toning down both his strengths and weaknesses is worth considering - e.g., bonus damage reduced to 30-40%, HP increased by 1-2/level.

(On a slightly related note, I've also found Berserkers to really suffer from the nerf to their attack bonus. They're a very simple class, and for the most part are strong when they can brute force everything but weak when they can't. They, too, might benefit from being toned down a bit - e.g., magic resist reduced to 30-40%, glyph penalty decreased to +1 cost.)

[Darvin]

Binlor isn't bad either for an Orc Rogue. Try PISORF-PISORF-PISORF-Stoneskin-hit-hit; it's piety neutral, you survive the first hit with temporary resistances and then follow up with a first strike. Probably won't carry you in vicious, but playing purist in hard difficulty it's nice since you only need to find one thing to make the combo work: Binlor.


Anyways, you're totally right that Rogues migrated from CYDSTEPP'ing to HP stacking, and you haven't even mentioned the Alchemist's Scroll (though now that it requires gold to activate it's just got a few too many constraints to make it locker worthy unless you really like Rogues or Priests). The thing is, without stacking elaborate combos the Rogue is just really hard to work with, and is subject to absolutely massive swings in damage output due to being such a glass cannon.

I don't think that's ever going to be solved at this point in development, and to be honest against many types of enemies I find the Warlord is still the better class due to repeatable CYDSTEPP.

[q 3]

[Darvin]

[Lujo]

I've been waiting for this thread. Been stacking insight and impressions forever.

But I'm also terribly hung over and got loads of stuff to do right now Damn.

Anyway, here goes the short version, I'd quote stuff, but I just can't.


1) I have a feeling that getting rid of rougue's HP disadvantage is a lot easier for the rogue than matching his advantages would be for any other character. Alchemist scroll Gaan'Telet runs (which I've done many times but sadly don't have any on tape) are ridiculous, esecially if using GETINDARE. If you're prepping STR, Dodge, Reflex and Burn Salve you get 32 HP just from using the initial potions to level, which leaves rogue with all his perks but at only -1.8 HP per level.


2) Also, it's quite obvious from all my video Gaan'Telet runs that First Strike from GETINDARE adds up to crazy amounts of overall damage delt or HP saved. With the Rogues damage bonus that makes it even more damage.

Someone ought to figure out a math formula for illustrating just how powerfull that is. For a usefull comparison standpoint, it translates to having a resource free DP per monster or a free dodge per monster. It only works as a last hit on a monster but with rogues huge damage, it's mostly a non-issue.

A first striker always reaches Horatio with resources to burn while a non-first strike character will have a very hard time even raching Horratio. This is just stress testing, the principle translates to any dungeon. I'm thoroughly convinced that conditionless first strike is too good of an ability for any class to have.

I've also played a lot of the Assasin before the buffs, and his Swift Hands ability always felt like "Rogue Light" - I think this is what the Rogue should've had from the start. Except I'm convinced THAT is rather powerfull as well.


3) GETINDARE giving dode prediction makes the Rogue more powerfull as it means more free powerfull hits. Dode with and without prediction are two very different things, and dodge prediction allows for major efficneciy boosts.


4) Comparing Rogue and the Warlord is interesting - the Warlord is slightly strictly better on a per hit basis, and also gets more free hits (especially if you build him properly). However...

EDIT: However, the old CYDSTEPP rogue only lost out on per hit damage by 10%, while at the same time being strictly better than the warlord by having random dodges and first strike - both of them built in and requiring no mana. So he won out on the number of free hits for big damage.

These days the Warlord is a poor-mans CYDSTEPP rogue, except that's like saying "a poor man's jumbo jet". All of his abilities still need fuel, while the rogue can still get one DP out of a pre fight CDYSTEPP and if doing fine get his first strike hit for free. Since the rougue benefits from DR stacking (of any kind), doesn't care about most debuffs, and doesn't have mana tied up in CYDSTEPPS, he's still probably better than the warlord overall. Especially if you consider his damage buff is always active.

And comparing either of those two clowns to anything else (except Monk) is sort of like comparing modern guns to flitlock ones.



That's it for now, I'm sure I can be more consise/coherent and that I have other stuff to say about it, except my head is killing me and work won't be doing itself, as usual.

EDIT: Edited for clarity and better Rogue/Warlord comparison.

[Blovski]

Rogue's not the easiest choice for Purist DI (I did get a beautiful god loadout - Taurog, Pactmaker, Dracul (and EM, in case I'd needed a desecration)). Resists hit 57% without any additional items. Didn't have to convert any potions. Didn't have to use any swells. Had a good 10-15 tiles of exploration and a lemissi glyph for the downstairs left.

(The trickiest bit, incidentally, was firstborn - took him down with one level-up, conversion-into-dracul, blood curse, +resists, first level of sanguine and then a mixture of regen fighting and bloodpool mopping up)

Edit: Only Hoarder to go : )

Also, on the rogue discussion - probably my favourite class since I'm pretty impatient with regen-fighting, definitely one of the most powerful in situations with sane monster-spawning. Counter-balanced by the fact that you *have* to make up a huge amount of health to deal with a lot of regular bosses, any first-strikers, level-catapulting etc. It's a lot easier to find yourself at the end of magma mines or at firstborn or Slime-Goo in an unwinnable situation as a Rogue than with a lot of other characters.

Dragon Isles is certainly easier for most characters than previously, or rather, it's a lot easier to know when you won't make it - the poor monk is *screwed* now (and half-dragon and gorgon don't have much of a way through either), though... don't really have any idea how to use him on this one... Demonic Library went from tough to horrible.

[Darvin]

[q 3]

[Darvin]

[FDru]

Cursed was implemented to counter resist stacking wasn't it?

What do people think about a percentage damage attack to counter HP stacking? Like monsters whose attack power is equal to some percentage of your maximum health (rounded up to prevent Dracul shenanigans).