Hello,
First hand experience Rogue C3 user here. My build is A2 > QS > Scout > Rogue C3. PVP focused build. Before all, I would like to say it’s really a tough road leveling up to Rank 7. Why?
You will be forever single target. The only AoE you have is Flare Shot, which has the AoE as big as one pixel of healing tiles. Any mobfest will kill you. You are not owning at bossing either. Prior to Rank 6, it’s hell.
Life doesn’t automatically come easy after obtaining your ultimate skill - Backstab. You can only deal massive damage after obtaining Karacha set. Without Karacha set, you’re totally useless. And to obtain Karacha set, you will need to win world boss in DPS race against Fletchers and etc and to win DPS you will need a Karacha set which is literally an endless cycle with nowhere to get in. I’ve suffered much not only in leveling, as well as obtaining a Karacha set. Don’t even bother thinking of going World Boss (unless you have a party to carry your way up) it is just a completely waste of time even if the boss drops what you want. The only way to obtain the set is to farm something else and buy it, and Rogue is really sad in farming.
Now, I’ve obtained Karacha set after 2 weeks of tough luck. Am I owning in PVP? Answer is NO. Don’t bother thinking about hitting someone from behind unless that person is extremely noob. You will miss 99% of the time on a moving target, or even if it hit, it’s not a full backstab (meaning the 3x damage doesn’t get triggered). The range of the skill, is also miserable. If you’re thinking of making a Rogue for instakill, forget about it. I needed Stone Shot to lock down my target before I actually move up to lay a proper backstab. Sometimes it requires a few shot. In 5v5 battle, you would probably be already dead after revealing yourself for 5 seconds because we are just squishy in nature. Honestly speaking, I could get easier kill by just spamming Stone Shot and knockback the target till wall, then just drop a Flare Shot on it and continue chaining.
What about bossing DPS? Oh yes, you can probably dish out some decent DPS. But have you forgotten about your very own low HP and low defense? Being melee put yourself into a higher risk of getting hit by boss. And if it’s a magic boss, you’re gone. Not to mention that Karacha set are at the expense of your Evasion, meaning you have more chance of taking damage. If you stay ranged, your DPS is really sad. Just plain sadness. At world boss, bosses will always move around as well, or there will always be a Psychokino to swap location with the boss. You will waste more time in relocating yourself to the back of the boss than DPS-ing.
Now, let’s get into the topic. We are talking about backstab damage being nerfed and overly relying on a certain set of gear. Frankly, that’s fine. From 70k nerfed to 50k, that’s still alot. Quite acceptable in my honest opinion, you don’t need that much to one hit someone either. However the problem does not lie with how much damage you hit with your backstab. It’s whether can you even land a proper backstab. It hits a single target (not even AoE like warrior’s normal attack) and the range is really poor. Secondly, you only have like 45 angle hitting from behind the boss to be considered as a backstab. Any other angle, is not a valid backstab and will not trigger the bonus.
So rather than buffing the damage, it would be better if anything coming from 180 degree of the target from the back would trigger the backstab bonus i e hitting from rear also consider as backstabbing, instead of just a pathetic 45 degree. Or, increase the range of backstab slightly rather than it being a point-blank skill (one box distance is good enough already).
The future of Rogue focused built character is also very doubting. Currently we are at 280 cap, using a lvl 170 set still fare well against those using higher level gears. However, will they even release a set of similar or improvised effect as Karacha in future content? Nobody knows…
Lastly I would like to talk about Rogue synergy, as well as what I have mistakenly understood for. I EVENTUALLY THOUGHT that massive bleeding triggers when you Crit, and massive bleeding / bleeding will both trigger Vendetta effect. That’s completely wrong. This job’s active skill have 0 synergy other than the critical rate. Rogue does not have a built-in mechanic to inflict Bleeding effect, while all its skills are made around Bleeding effect. That’s just completely absurd. The only way to inflict bleeding is Deploy Pavise, which is not practical at all, or going for Fletcher for Poison Arrow, where you would waste one rank taking a class with only one purpose that you need for.
To trigger Massive Bleeding from Backstab, the target must be first inflicted with Bleeding status and your Backstab have to crit. And Massive Bleeding does not trigger Vendetta’s double damage effect, only Bleeding. But you have no practical way of inflicting Bleeding. Now you see? It’s like in a Solitaire where you have obtained A, 2, 4 to K but missing a number 3 card in between.
Moreover, Massive Bleeding is at the expense of doubling the cooldown of your Backstab. Is it really worth going through the effort just to trigger that effect? Another big NO. With Karacha Set bonus, doing 2 more backstabs definitely outweight the Massive Bleeding effect.
Now, let’s talk about Vendetta. This skill is completely useless if you do not plan to max it out at Level 15. Why you need a skill that takes 2.5 seconds of charge time just to deal a miserably 5k damage crit on a single target? Archer C3 Multishot could do better damage, has overheat, and shorter cooldown. You might argue that if it kills the target, it gives a good buff, which is decent in PvE. But the main issue is, do you even PvE well? Most Rogue are PvP or Bossing focused. Please tell me what kind of AoE skill that you have other than Flare Shot to really utilise that STR Bonus in PvE unless you are a Ranger built Rogue. Not to mention the buff is also completely impractical when it comes to Bossing / PVP. If it’s something like a multishot where you can throw all your skill points in at early stage of the game, that’s a different story. But is it really worth your 15 skill points at Rank 5-7?
The only way to make this useful is to make the Massive Bleeding trigger at critical, removing the criteria of the target must be first inflicted with Bleeding effect. Secondly, Vendetta’s bonus should work on Massive Bleeding.
And everything else should work fine…
Besides that, Rogue is really a very fun and versatile class to play. It depends mainly on how good a player react to different situation and act differently, provides alot of flexibility.
Hereby I have spoken out all the major problems I’m facing with the class’ intended purpose (note that I’m not even asking to give Rogue AoE skills and stuff). And also the solution to fix the problem with Rogue.
I would be really happy if my opinion is heard and these changes are implemented to fix the class, as I really enjoy playing this class.
