Hey guys, I'm not on much at all these days..but i just happened to log on and see this post. I will put in my two cents on the discussion of a Rogue.

I'll start by saying that i was the first one to ever get a Rogue past the lvl of 22, (Tze the dark-elf Rogue) which i wish dom or bane had a file saved of the char but already proven to be unlikely. Anyways, as i was lvling a rogue, i did happen to roleplay here and there which i was awarded experience and some gold for it. Getting to a high lvl is hard in itself, i will agree when i people comment on how rogues don't have enough hp and or mp. I remember as Tze when i was around lvl 23-24 i felt bold enough to pay a visit to the fearsome Drax the Green Dragon. Which i soloed, and after that changes were made. It would be nice if a rogue got an extra HP per lvl added on to compensate for the lack of mp and healing abilities.

When i got to lvl 25 it almost felt as if Tze was a God. It was my first ever character past lvl 18 and it only got better with my dodging skills and parrying. I recall fighting Xelloz and a fighter, i forget his name, but i think it may have been Delta. During those fights, i couldn't get circled or BS'd by the chars that were my same level. I'm not sure how the new skills system will effect a rogues "acrobatic abilities", but i will say that when i played my rogue, i found it to be a great class, like others say, they're a great class to roleplay with. But at the same time as i got higher lvl i wanted to use my abilities to dodge/parry more often, which leads me to talk about what Bane said about adding abilities.

As i got higher lvl it would be hard to kill a rogue during combat (but casters spank rogues). There were times when i thought that it'd be nice to have more combat skills that would be AOE to compensate for the lack of casting. But even w/out i think a rogue is awesome. It was my first char past lvl 25 and i used to die a lot..wait actually i guess i still die a lot... but to get it to 25 and still dying, something must be good with the class.

Please don't even think about scrapping a rogue, that would be dissasterous..

You just completely explained the problem.

All classes have dodge, and many now also have parry which is a skill and affects you reposte. Basically Rogues no longer dodge and reposte like they used to, and with armor damage absorbtion and reliance on leather armor you're taking a lot of damage.

My rogue can only really handle casters because I'd rather save the spell damage and kill it quickly, since it probably has lower hp, than deal with a combat mob that will beat the absolute hell out of me because of my failure to dodge and reposte like I think I should.

I'll take a look at the old code and do a % chance comparison, I'm not 100% convinced that you guys are dealing with actual numbers, instead of just perceived numbers. (It is possible they dodge differently, but I believe I tried to consider that when making the new formulas)

If someone else wants to look back at a pre-combat system build and report back, that'd be helpful :P

-Bane

Funbad has a lower parry than some of the other Rogues. I have no idea why, or how, that could have happened.

On a random note, my first rogue was Rand and I got him to 13...That was so long ago that the bronze rapier that dropped from Hethe was awesome and the only way to kill the Renegade leveling perm was to use an ada dagger +3 and fireblade +3.

Oh the memories.

I'm not sure if its still out there archived, but on the old forums wasn't there a log of a duel between two level 25ish rogues? It was like non stop dodging? I've never really leveled a rogue because they seemed like a pain in the ass, but truthfully I think that most classes are crazy unbalanced right now.

I would say in terms of balance its like this:

1. Rangers/Clerics-

Rangers can deal a shit load of damage in a short amount of time. Dual wield+ability to cast+decent hp = you can pretty much kill anything in a short period of time. Plus they are probably the second best class to explore with (vamp #1 because of mist). As long as you have a stockpile of weapons, this may be the easiest class to level. I got Kera to 20 in only 26 game hours. 1-16 was basically solo, and 16-20 was done with Cubbie.

Clerics (Gradius/Enoch/Aramon) are as good if not better at times then rangers, in some cases rangers have an edge, and in others clerics have an edge. Gradius pets and smother are sick, especially since a lot of higher mobs are weak to earth. Its obvious that Gradius is unbalanced because probably the fastest two characers to level to 40 were both Gradius clerics, and both did most of the leveling solo.

Enoch is also pretty damn easy to level. You heal like a god from maybe 16 on. Ceris may heal a tad better but who the hell wants to deal with the aura penalties, especially when at higher levels, most mobs/perms are evil (although this has gotten somewhat better in the last year). Turn is sick, and really helps with level, and holyword can be damn good at times. Add the heavy armor on top of that, and you can pretty much outlast anything that can't do 100+ damage every 3 seconds.

Aramon is a pretty sick as well, in fact, if we were to purge tomorrow, and I had to make a character with the intent of trying to get a jump start on everyone, and get important items before everyone else, I would go with Aramon. No one can get the items people would need at lower and mid levels faster then aramon due to the fact that a lot of things you want to use at that level are dropped by undead mobs. The aura situation is easy to deal with. Pets are pretty nice after 16, and get godly later on. Only really downside to Aramon is healing others, and light armor restrictions.


2. Fighters/Zerkers- Hit like gods, can wear heavy armor, bash is nasty, circle is arguably the best ability in the game, and hardly any weapon restrictions, and the easiest class in the game to stat for. Only thing is that if its a no circle mob, you need a healer around.


After these three classes there is a pretty decent drop off IMO. Pet classes would be the next on my list. Druids and Bards. Both have great abilities, and pets are really nice. Druids can tank like a mother, heal decently, and explore pretty well. Bards are weaker solo but in a group there isn't a nicer ability then magic song.

Paly is pretty decent and could probably go in the group with Druids and bards, but the pets make the difference IMO. Can tank well, heal well, turn, good in groups. No real downside.

Mages would come next because they have a lot of useful abilities. Enchant, port, anchor, etc etc.

Past that its really a cluster fuck of why would you want to play any of the following classes.

Rogues suck IMO now. Don't really dodge or riposte like in the past. Pick is useless. They can't tank shit. There is no good armor in the game at higher levels.

Thieves suck for a lot of the reasons rogues do. Their isn't much use to steal when almost any item wanted in the game that is stealable, is easy to get nowadays anyways.

Assasins are a joke now. BS doesn't matter anymore. PK is so different now that backstab just isn't useful.

Vamps are ok because they have some decent abilities, but I think the class should dissapear and that it should become what Dom and Bane want, with a few changes. If you are turned into a vamp, you should slowly gain the abilities. Bite would come immediately for obvious reasons. No undead attack should come 5 or so levels after you become a vamp. Hypno after another few levels. Daylight should harm you more.

DK- shitty version of a paly. Abilities blow for the most part IMO. Not much to kill later on (although this has gotten better) They really bring nothing to a group.

I'm not even going to list anything else, because I don't think any of the other shit is worth playing.

Oh, Disaron.

Think of it like this. There are three archetypes for characters in this game.

Burst.
Stun.
Tank.

You just need to make sure you know which one's which, since it doesn't always make sense. For instance, Fighters are a stun archetype, they try to avoid being hit by circling and bashing their targets, so they fight like a mage does.

So, the way it goes:

Mages, Fighters, Zerkers, Clerics, Bards, Druids, and Liches are all good examples of classes that will try to stun their target while in combat with stun/circle/bash.

Assassins, Rangers, Vampires, and Thieves are burst damage classes, throwing out a bite/backstab/ambush/spell/wand/scroll and killing it as fast as possible. Sometimes using stuns if it's required to finish off, Rangers and Vampires being exceptional at this.

Tanking classes get tricky. These are classes with either a slow cast time or poor mp so stunning becomes difficult, and a strong enough healing ability, maybe enough armor to soak up the damage they are receiving, or a solid dodge. This would include Deathknights, Rogues, and Werewolves.

Paladins could tank or stun pretty well.

You seem to have a preference for the stun classes because the changes in how combat damage works makes getting hit at all undesirable, but it doesn't mean it's the only way to play.

Bane wrote:

Ocelot wrote: The entire class system should probably be scrapped and reworked from the ground up. Same with races. I assume that will probably be done at some point, so really right now, doing little things to this class or that class is just putting on chewing gum and rubber bands. In fact, i know this wouldn't happen any time soon, but once all the new spells and other systems are put in place and the code is standardized, i'd almost say it'd be best to just rebuild an entirely new RoH....new world..all that...keeping some similar stuff, but designing the cities and world from the ground up with what we can now do with the code completely in mind from the BEGINNING. The problem was we started with a shitty code base (mordor), and we didn't know how shitty it was until we all wised up. :P Are you volunteering to come back and help code and build again?

Notice my wording discussed what likely should happen, not what needs to happen, or what somebody needs to do...so no...I am not volunteering..yet. Jackass... :P

Bane wrote:

I'll take a look at the old code and do a % chance comparison, I'm not 100% convinced that you guys are dealing with actual numbers, instead of just perceived numbers. (It is possible they dodge differently, but I believe I tried to consider that when making the new formulas) If someone else wants to look back at a pre-combat system build and report back, that'd be helpful :P -Bane

I believe thieves dodged slightly better than rogues did, since rogues could riposte. I seem to remember doing that.

Ocelot wrote:

I am not volunteering..yet. Jackass... :P

Aww come on, You know you wanna! I promise not to have big huge shouting matches again, haha.