What are some good rogue builds?

[Invader]

I thought about using pyro but wouldnt that just mess up stat? For needing strength, finese, int and memory or would there be an easier to do this?

[Commander Gorda]

Mostly warfare for damage, i like some polymorph for chameleon cloak, chicken claw, twntacle lash, and a few points in scoundrel for adrenalin and other skills.

[Invader]

Originally posted by Commander Gorda:

Mostly warfare for damage, i like some polymorph for chameleon cloak, chicken claw, twntacle lash, and a few points in scoundrel for adrenalin and other skills.

I've done those before but i'm simply wanting to try something new.

[Chaoslink]

Try making them a hybrid damage elementalist using weapon buffs like Venom Coating to apply magic damage to their attacks. They can’t get it as high as archers can until late game, but you can get a pretty significant amount of magic damage out just through weapon buffs. Sparking swings is a fun thing to play with on any melee.

[Invader]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Try making them a hybrid damage elementalist using weapon buffs like Venom Coating to apply magic damage to their attacks. They can’t get it as high as archers can until late game, but you can get a pretty significant amount of magic damage out just through weapon buffs. Sparking swings is a fun thing to play with on any melee.

So it be more of a late game damage?

[Commander Gorda]

You can use some buffs like peace of mind, haste and sparking swings, sparkmaster from pyro. But you are just gimping your build if you put both points in Intelligence and finesse.

[Invader]

Originally posted by Commander Gorda:

You can use some buffs like peace of mind, haste and sparking swings, sparkmaster from pyro. But you are just gimping your build if you put both points in Intelligence and finesse.

Yeah, hybrid builds are like that.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Genocide:

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Try making them a hybrid damage elementalist using weapon buffs like Venom Coating to apply magic damage to their attacks. They can’t get it as high as archers can until late game, but you can get a pretty significant amount of magic damage out just through weapon buffs. Sparking swings is a fun thing to play with on any melee.

So it be more of a late game damage?

It still does reasonable magic damage (alongside physical) to allow mages to support without having to strip the entire armor themselves. Dual daggers will create two sparks from sparking swings per attack, though other melee with cleave can do better as they’ll create a spark per target hit. I’ve never tried, but theoretically a dual STR weapon build with two cleave 1handers would be the most effective use of that spell just a single 2 AP attack against a cluster of 5 enemies would make 10 sparks. Get three or four attacks in and you’re looking at a ton of damage.

[Invader]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Originally posted by Genocide:

So it be more of a late game damage?

It still does reasonable magic damage (alongside physical) to allow mages to support without having to strip the entire armor themselves. Dual daggers will create two sparks from sparking swings per attack, though other melee with cleave can do better as they’ll create a spark per target hit. I’ve never tried, but theoretically a dual STR weapon build with two cleave 1handers would be the most effective use of that spell just a single 2 AP attack against a cluster of 5 enemies would make 10 sparks. Get three or four attacks in and you’re looking at a ton of damage.

Hm, so mostly INT or STR for this?

[Stabbey]

The Rogue build I used in my first playthrough took Aerothurge as a secondary school - focusing on utility skills which don't use Int.

Aerothurge gives Teleport, Netherswap, and Uncanny Evasion, all of which are excellent for a melee-range character who relies on precise positioning behind an enemy. Additional utility skills are Favorable Wind for extra distance when moving, Tornado, Pressure Spike, and Vaporize for surface-control. Erratic Wisp is another possible skill since a Rogue will already have the 1 Huntsman prerequisite for the Duck Duck Goose Talent.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Genocide:

Hm, so mostly INT or STR for this?

Its a weapon based build, so its entirely based on whatever your weapon scales off of. It works for everything. If you go staff you go INT, daggers go Finesse, same as usual. The spells don't scale off anything but level really. I mean, Venom Coating I'd guess would get some scaling from Geomancer, but it wouldn't really be necessary to stack it. You just build like you'd normally do for stats, but focus on getting weapons with magic damage on them, rune slots and craft the stuff on it as well. Then you just get weapon buffs and go nuts.

[Palumtra]

Rogue is Finesse based because daggers are finesse based which makes all of your attacks and attack skills scale with Finesse.
You need a lot of moblity as Rogue to get behind your enemies for those guaranteed backstabs which you can achive in a multitude of ways. (Cloak and Dagger, Tactical Retreat, Phoneix Dive, Blitz Attack, Backlash, Chameleon Cloak etc).
Once you maxed Finesse you go for Wits as it gives you initiatve, crit chance (sometimes you can't backstab....but initiatve is the main point here) and also improves your trap/secret detection but also go for some Memory so you can have more skills at your disposal.
After you max Scoundrel go for Warfare, it makes your attacks hit even harder. I've teared trough Classic Mode with relative ease as Rogue :) (I prefer Lone Wolf setups tho)

[Godwoken Dovahkiin]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Originally posted by Genocide:

Hm, so mostly INT or STR for this?

Its a weapon based build, so its entirely based on whatever your weapon scales off of. It works for everything. If you go staff you go INT, daggers go Finesse, same as usual. The spells don't scale off anything but level really. I mean, Venom Coating I'd guess would get some scaling from Geomancer, but it wouldn't really be necessary to stack it. You just build like you'd normally do for stats, but focus on getting weapons with magic damage on them, rune slots and craft the stuff on it as well. Then you just get weapon buffs and go nuts.

Sparking Swings damage scales off INT + Pyro iirc, a huge benefit it has over Venom Coat which only scales with Geo.

[Geno Gasparelli]

Originally posted by Stabbey:

The Rogue build I used in my first playthrough took Aerothurge as a secondary school - focusing on utility skills which don't use Int.

Aerothurge gives Teleport, Netherswap, and Uncanny Evasion, all of which are excellent for a melee-range character who relies on precise positioning behind an enemy. Additional utility skills are Favorable Wind for extra distance when moving, Tornado, Pressure Spike, and Vaporize for surface-control. Erratic Wisp is another possible skill since a Rogue will already have the 1 Huntsman prerequisite for the Duck Duck Goose Talent.

Really interested in this build - can you share how many points you put in everything?

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Godwoken Dovahkiin:

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Its a weapon based build, so its entirely based on whatever your weapon scales off of. It works for everything. If you go staff you go INT, daggers go Finesse, same as usual. The spells don't scale off anything but level really. I mean, Venom Coating I'd guess would get some scaling from Geomancer, but it wouldn't really be necessary to stack it. You just build like you'd normally do for stats, but focus on getting weapons with magic damage on them, rune slots and craft the stuff on it as well. Then you just get weapon buffs and go nuts.

Sparking Swings damage scales off INT + Pyro iirc, a huge benefit it has over Venom Coat which only scales with Geo.

I don’t remember it being that way but maybe.... either way, if used on a physical build you’d still want to focus your main attribute and avoid the split.

[Stabbey]

Originally posted by Eidam:

Really interested in this build - can you share how many points you put in everything?

I might be a bad example, because I went a little Jack-of-All-Trades with the Rogue since I also put points into Polymorph. So keep in mind that my build could have been done better, and I also kept a handful of unspent points in reserve in case of indecision or sudden necessity. My build is in no way optimized or min-maxed, so keep that in mind.

Here's what my build looked like at level 15:

Beast
STR: 10
FIN: 26 (22 + 4)
INT: 10
CON: 15 (11 + 4)
MEM: 21
WIT: 19 (14 + 5)
Unspent: 5 points

Dodge: 50%
Critical Chance: 9%
Critical Multiplier: 195%

The points I sunk into MEM were a sacrifice of damage (from FIN) in exchange for the greater utility having more skills available offered me. Your build might not need as much at that point. The single point into CON probably didn't do much for me after level 8. The 4 points into WIT were for secret finding and initiative, but it probably was a waste to put them there since the critical chance isn't that useful for a Rogue.

Civil Ability: Thievery (5). For lockpicking and pickpocketing.

Combat Abilities
Dual Wielding: 4
Aerothurge: 4 (2 + 2)
Huntsman: 2 (1 + 1)
Polymorph: 2
Scoundrel: 9 (4 + 5)
Unspent: 3

The forum will say that you should put 10 into Warfare and only enough into Scoundrel for your skills. That's fair, but I was going for a Dodge-based build instead of a pure damage build. My dodge chance was 50% at this point. Polymorph was for Chameleon Cloak, and once I had that, the extra utility from certain other skills was nice.

Talents
The Pawn - Free movement.
Opportunist - AoO's whenever enemies try to leave my area
Duck Duck Goose - So enemies cannot use AoO's on me
Parry Master - 10% chance to block when dual-wielding.

I took many more skills than is strictly needed. You probably won't need nearly this many. These are the ones I had memorized, there were some others not in active use.

Scoundrel
Adrenaline
Backlash
Chloroform
Throwing Knife
Corrupted Blade - this one isn't that great, really.
Cloak and Dagger
Gag Order
Rupture Tendons

Huntsman
First Aid - I already had the point in Huntsman for the talent, so...

Aerothurge
Smoke Cover - Kinda bad, actually.
Uncanny Evasion
Teleportation
Nether Swap
Pressure Spike - For turning clouds into surfaces, because the damage isn't much with my low INT.

Polymorph
Chameleon Cloak
Chicken Claw
Heart of Steel - Armor regeneration
Medusa Head
Spread Your Wings - Movement
Terrain Transformation - Move that nasty surface from under your characters and swap it with the safe surface under an enemy. Also great for moving lava!

Source
Bless

I also had from socketing Source Orbs into Helmet and Armor: Evasion Aura and Cure Wounds.


Once again, this build could have been done more efficiently with higher damage with fewer wasted points, you probably don't need that much memory (20 is about as much as I'm willing to put on any character.), and most people use Warfare for the higher damage. So take this build with a grain of salt, it could be better.