Rogue in NG+5 and above

[jp1477]

I've seen a few threads where folks have said the rogue has extremely high damage. It's sometimes hard to tell what difficulty people are talking about, as a number of builds that shred NG+0 fall apart later.

How are people playing rogue at more challenging levels...let's say at least NG+5? I feel like it's probably poison spec, but...dex-based weapon damage/crit setup? Int-based fan of knives spam? Something else? And what are the key orbs to grab?

[Morialis]

My rogue is int based, with the bomb (forget the name of the class and not at home to check). I respeced to drop the spinning blade attack and the slice and dice I think it was called passive, to remove their skill orbs from the pool. I already leveled a high Sorcerer so I was able to equip high level int gear for a bunch of the spell attack benefits (cost down, crit chance, crit damage, cast speed). I also use the int dagger (for innate parry) and tome but just for stats, I never press left or right click.

My priority is to get the bombs to drop on dash upgraded (like 99% of my bombs are used by dashing, almost all my MP is spent on fan of knives spam), bomb fire patch upgraded, fan of knives damage upgraded, and fan of knives crit upgraded on the skill orbs (which are pretty easy to find since 2 of my skills are removed).

Also from all the points I save from not taking 2 skills, I can attune a ton of trinkets (damage, crit, %HP, +HP, evasion, damage reduction, elite damage, and boss damage are my priority but I have points to spare after upgrading all of the relevant trinkets that help with combat).

The bombs help with trash mobs, the dagger spam + bomb fire patches ruin bosses (I've killed the final boss before he could transition to phase 2, forget if it was NG+0 or NG+1), all my gear is enchanted with decent enchants (+dmg to elites, +% physical damage, +spell power, +spell crit, better cooldown, etc)

I'm currently NG+5 on my sorcerer and rogue, but I haven't run in to a wall yet, I've just been playing other characters and haven't tried pushing NG+ boundaries on them yet to see where I hit a wall.

I also find mapping the dagger throw skill to a button you can hold down without interfering with WASD helps (I have it on a mouse button), since I often just hold it down for awhile

Also I just have been automatically taking them so long I don't remember exactly what they do, but the drinks I take are the green and blue bottle ones that help spells (i think they helped cooldown and crit at the cost of more mana?, but I take the -25% mana cost blessing), and the drink which is +20% damage, +25% shadow curse)

[Kitty]

im ng6+ on rogue. you build poison with dual daggers, and take armor pen and poison pen on your daggers and gloves (i'd recommend one on each). you want to prioritize your basic attacks. your poison cloud is the only useful spell for damage, with flurry of blades existing solely for applying debuffs.

Poison cloud is better than the bombs or the blades because not only does it do more total damage, in a larger area and for a longer time, but it provides you with a good amount of evasion while you are in it, and applies armor break to enemies. also, the poison cloud is still good even if you are very unlucky and don't get it's upgrades, where as the bomb needs it's aoe and dash upgrades to start being really useful.

fan of knives is a total waste, you will always outpace it in dps with your basic attacks, take literally any other upgrades.

flurry of blades just take the disarm chance or bolas, both if you are lucky enough to get them to a good %. it's ok to skip this entirely to prioritize the poison cloud's upgrades.

coated weapons is deceptively strong, especially at higher levels. at level 50 it'll add 100 poison damage to every hit when fully upgraded.

deadly toxins is important as well. it not only increases most of the damage you are doing, but gives you a tiny bit of protection as well.

for slice and dice take "blade parry" and for sidestep take "on the move".

once your basic attack speed is up high, like 200%+, which is really easy to do, you can essentially just walk through or in circles around groups of enemies and kill them very quickly and very easily.

if you are good at playing rogue, the evasion and parry bonuses will be plenty to keep you alive, so you can mostly ignore increasing your armor and resistances. ng+ scaling will always outpace your ability to add those anyway, so you might as well start getting used to not relying on them to stay alive. just make sure you have enough health that you can take a few hits if you have bad luck or make a mistake.

and obviously you focus on dexterity with this build. your crit chance should easily be around 35-40% by the time you reach avatar, with 350-400% bonus, if not more. dexterity builds don't rely on the chance of getting the right trinkets that intelligence builds do, so you'll do well no matter the trinkets or orbs you get. dex vs int, if you end up with a bad roll of trinkets and skill orbs, dex always wins.

as a rogue you still have to put more effort than other classes into positioning and movement, and learn to identify the ranged enemies in crowds quickly and prioritize killing them, but the poison build is the highest potential dps.

[Mawdesty]

Originally posted by jp1477:

How are people playing rogue at more challenging levels...let's say at least NG+5? I feel like it's probably poison spec, but...dex-based weapon damage/crit setup? Int-based fan of knives spam? Something else? And what are the key orbs to grab?

Very easily! Defeated the last boss before he could even perform a 4th attack. Never saw him do the dash, basically. I've not really done anything close to that dps on any other class at their top NG at the time. This was done on NG7, I think, highest one at that moment.

This was poison spec Int Focused and I probably did get every skill upgrade and relevant trinket that would boost my damage output. This is also not easily repeatable. The top end of the build isn't consistent but I didn't perform poorly for not getting everything on list either. I specifically leveled my Sorcerer to 74 for the extra mana regen. Almost all classes need it but Rogue is a notorious mana fiend. High level Sorcerer is basically a must have in general. I got all the instruments for cast speed, drum is the most important. I got all the knives poison damage skill up, I got the full cast speed (100% at 20 stacks), I may have also had epic mana orb.

Mana helps the casting sustain but notably you got potions to burn. May as well use them to win fast. Rogue has so many 3 pip skill upgrades such that you basically can't guarantee to get the best thing for your build, even disabling combo. By the end you should have a number of the upgrades though. Just might not see them all. Also, I never take focused throw. 3 projectiles for a +200% damage buff isn't near good enough to warrant destroying your easy wave clear.

[Mawdesty]

Originally posted by Kitty:

fan of knives is a total waste, you will always outpace it in dps with your basic attacks, take literally any other upgrades.

This was funny to read.

[Morialis]

Originally posted by Mawdesty:

Originally posted by Kitty:

fan of knives is a total waste, you will always outpace it in dps with your basic attacks, take literally any other upgrades.

This was funny to read.

Yeah, I haven't tried playing a weapon damage Rogue yet but it makes sense in the higher levels for them to basically have weapons vs spells be totally incompatible with each other as you focus on buffing one at the total expense of the other, but for my build also fan of knives is insane lol, I find it interesting that the first 3 builds suggested here were different at least, so kudos to build variety being viable. I might have to take another look at what the poison subclass has, but a lot of my time has been spent powerleveling alts of friends which I think the bomb is very nice for and the fire patches are quite good on the bosses I feel

[Kitty]

Originally posted by Mawdesty:

Originally posted by Kitty:

fan of knives is a total waste, you will always outpace it in dps with your basic attacks, take literally any other upgrades.

This was funny to read.

if you are building dexterity, it is a total waste. and considering that the dexterity build is better than the intelligence build, it's true in general that fan of knives is a waste.

[Mawdesty]

Originally posted by Kitty:

Originally posted by Mawdesty:

This was funny to read.

if you are building dexterity, it is a total waste. and considering that the dexterity build is better than the intelligence build, it's true in general that fan of knives is a waste.

Not wrong there on the dex build bit. That is determining factor to the tactic. And the way the game is setup, extreme late game will need weapon builds.

In general, Fan of knives is maybe the strongest skill Rogue has. Skills do a lot of damage but past a certain point weapons will surpass that, true. Coated poisons is very strong as well. I'm just not lucky enough to get the orbs for it consistently so opt for fan of Knives. Easier to make do with that and it's probably more destructive at my current NG, for now.

[Morialis]

Originally posted by Kitty:

Originally posted by Mawdesty:

This was funny to read.

if you are building dexterity, it is a total waste. and considering that the dexterity build is better than the intelligence build, it's true in general that fan of knives is a waste.

Don't think you were playing the build right if you were saying it relied on good orb luck and trinkets in your original post, I skip to the barracks specifically because I need hardly any orbs or trinkets at all, and it's easy to get the skill orbs I want since I only have 4 active skills

[jp1477]

Really good discussion and ideas here, thanks all! Cool to see that people have had success with a few different builds. I'm going to try them all today. :D

Fortunately, I did level my sorc and warlock high enough to have a good stash of high level int gear.

[RED🅾]

I personally run the assassin build, the life leech 5% is really something. even in ng5 you dont need potion, just play a little less reckless. i focus evasion and crit and attackspeed to shred on basic attack. pretty good stuff. use durability in enchant on armour and pick the stats that guarantee evasion, crits, an life leech and ur alright.

[󠀡󠀡]

i'm NG10+ rogue-poison. My stats point is ~82 wis (enough to wear cape), ~230 int to wear armor, then rest to dex for spell power, 0 to vitality.
My gear and enchant:
- Dagger: spell power, physical pen (i use dagger for parry stat)
- shield: parry and HP. just use highest ilevel shield i can use without spend point to str
- hat: physical damage/spell power, mana cost. if wizard level is low then go spell power.
- armor: bonus vitality, mana cost
- gloves: physical damage/spell power, mana cost/physical pen.
- shoes: bonus vitality, damage reduce.
- cape: physical damage, damage to boss.
Starter buff:
- 25% mana cost.
- +1 hp, mana regen
- 25% cast speed, cooldown reduce but +10% mana cost
- 50% chance to take 35 damage instead of shadow curse
If i solo, i also take +50% spell damage but 50% mana cost is HP.
P/s: must not pick orb that make fan of knives fly in a straight line (i don't remember that name)

[Zyldjian]

Originally posted by 󠀡󠀡:

i'm NG10+ rogue-poison. My stats point is ~82 wis (enough to wear cape), ~230 int to wear armor, then rest to dex for spell power, 0 to vitality.
My gear and enchant:
- Dagger: spell power, physical pen (i use dagger for parry stat)
- shield: parry and HP. just use highest ilevel shield i can use without spend point to str
- hat: physical damage/spell power, mana cost. if wizard level is low then go spell power.
- armor: bonus vitality, mana cost
- gloves: physical damage/spell power, mana cost/physical pen.
- shoes: bonus vitality, damage reduce.
- cape: physical damage, damage to boss.
Starter buff:
- 25% mana cost.
- +1 hp, mana regen
- 25% cast speed, cooldown reduce but +10% mana cost
- 50% chance to take 35 damage instead of shadow curse
If i solo, i also take +50% spell damage but 50% mana cost is HP

I love this build, the only thing I would change is not going into Dex, int gives the spell crit/crit dmg but I would go all into dex, get more spell damage, also our weapon damage is nothing to sneeze at even in poison

[Mawdesty]

Originally posted by 󠀡󠀡:

~230 int to wear armor, then rest to dex for spell power,

This part here interests me. Why the Dex for spell power? You are wearing the skill power cape, an impressive one at that. And even some of the enchants are geared to spell power. Are you using your dagger as an option too and want some Dex for that?

In terms of damage stats, the hardest stat to find is Crit dmg. Lots of methods to raise skill power, but crit damage only shows up on 2 Trinkets. If you're gonna use skills, Int helps the over all damage more than sinking into pure Skill. It might sound odd to say with a 230-ish investment already, but there just is no other way to get crit and letting a multiplier stagnate will lead to less growth overall.

[󠀡󠀡]

Originally posted by Mawdesty:

Originally posted by 󠀡󠀡:

~230 int to wear armor, then rest to dex for spell power,

This part here interests me. Why the Dex for spell power? You are wearing the skill power cape, an impressive one at that. And even some of the enchants are geared to spell power. Are you using your dagger as an option too and want some Dex for that?

In terms of damage stats, the hardest stat to find is Crit dmg. Lots of methods to raise skill power, but crit damage only shows up on 2 Trinkets. If you're gonna use skills, Int helps the over all damage more than sinking into pure Skill. It might sound odd to say with a 230-ish investment already, but there just is no other way to get crit and letting a multiplier stagnate will lead to less growth overall.

i use int dagger. I spent point to dex for spell power bc at 250+ int, keep spend point to int give too small percent to crit chance. and i think that made crit damage less effective after 250 int unless int give spell power too. Also fan of knives deal poison damage as DoT damage and with my experience playing other games, DoT damage usually can't crit. I'm not sure about this game, maybe i'm wrong bc i turn off damage number and after all, i just spent ~20 point to dex so it doesn't make a noticeable difference. it's your choice to follow that or not. Reset stats point cost is cheap so you can reset whenever you want.

[󠀡󠀡]

Originally posted by Zyldjian:

I love this build, the only thing I would change is not going into Dex, int gives the spell crit/crit dmg but I would go all into dex, get more spell damage, also our weapon damage is nothing to sneeze at even in poison

I tried dex gear for rogue, but back to int bc:
- dex armor give attack speed that useless in caster build. while int armor give cast speed which much more useful in poison rogue bc fan of knives cd is 0.2s.
- same with shoes. It give usless base stat (move speed) compare with int shoes (-20% mana cost)
- dex hat/gloves give weapon crit damage/chance.
weapon damage is nothing but higher ilevel weapon give more spell power too