Is it just me or does the rogue tree feel like they put the rogue in the game and fleshed out its playstyle. Then as an afterthough went… oh crap… we need a bow user! Then added a few ranged skills but never made any passives or synergistic abilities.
For example, the passive heal is tied to crits against close enemies. The extra dr is tied to close enemies. 2 of the 5 “ultimate passives” are useless for ranged, but all 5 are good for melee. Trap skills are put at your feet but as a full ranged character that seems wasteful. Most of the time, monsters didn’t get that far. Caltrops makes barrage less useful by throwing you backwards (for those who dont know, barrage is a cone attack and will hit close mobs with more arrows). Concealment might be useful as an oh s**t button i guess? Dash is the only useful agility skill and you use it for positioning not damage.
I played about 80 hours of rogue on the beta and i honestly came to the conclusion that i only needed 3 slots to be effective. Basic, core, and dash. You could put imbue and the ultimate in 2 of the other slots, but the imbues are situational at best (and just had their cd increased) and the ult is good for burst, but not mandatory. The 6th spot i switched between every other ability and none of them seemed to be great. The best was smoke bomb but even then you can use the aspect that makes you drop smoke bombs when you dash. It was still fun, but the more i think about it the more i think theu honestly just wanted rogues to be melee.
4 Likes
Once you start fighting harder enemies, you’ll need to kite. Traps and Caltrops will start looking more appealing.
Cant expect everything to be good for everything.
Nah this isnt even that. It just feels unfinished.
2 Likes
I’ll have to play it at endgame to really give it a fair judgement. I do think the CD reduction from twisting blades is ridiculous though.
It doesn’t feel like that at all. A lot of those examples you cited are really just an acknowledgement that melee rogues need the extra passives to have any acceptable level of survivability in the late game.
Precision only works for marksman skills. How is precision good for melee?
They use a marksman generator. The knives is marksman not cutthroat.
Of the skills that use swords/daggers, only Puncture is classified as a marksman skill, which if you’re using that to take advantage of Precision, then you’re knee capping yourself anyway.
Personally I tried ranged rogue the first beta weekend and did not especially enjoy it. Tried melee rogue the second weekend and loved it and considered making it my main. But on ranged rogue I didn’t find any of the ranged ability legendary aspects and I saw some on streams that looked fun so I’m sure I’ll try it out at some point in the future. But from my experience I didn’t find ranged quite as fun as Demon Hunter which was my most played D3 class. Melee I really loved the feel of though.
I didnt say it was optimal, i said it could still benefit.
I played a ranged rogue with caltrops and poison trap and it was totally OP. I basically never died since I was kiting everything. Maybe not the flashiest build but for sure valid.
so, caltrops is counterproductive for my build because i used barrage. using it moves you backwards causing more barrage shots to miss… it was basically a shotgun build. i used it for a while, but i was using it to apply the slow more than using it to kite. i would dash in, hit caltrops, then use evade to get back to melee range and blast them in the face with 8 arrows. Eventually it just felt like it wasnt needed though because i was killing them anyway without the slow debuff. Poison trap makes sense, but i only used it on dungeon bosses because everything else i would use it on died before it really did much damage.
My skill loadout was
Imbue which it didnt really seem to matter which one i used. they all seemed super situational. shadow was the best for trash, ice was the best for big numbers once they froze, and poison was best for high hp.
Dash Which i got from boots and really only used for mobility
Heartseeker for attack speed and crit chance
Barrage for the core
Shadow clone for ult
and then i switched between caltrops, poison trap, and smoke bomb, but all seemed like a waste to use instead of just doing more damage with heartseeker or barrage.
I was stacking damage to vulnerable, basic skill damge, and damage to cc. my heartseekers would crit for between 2.5 to 3k and my barrage would crit anywhere from 2.5 to 7.5k based on if the mob was frozen or not. On bosses however that were immune to cc, my crits were only like 800 for auto and 1.5 for barrage. i felt massively gimped on bosses even though i was still killing them in like 4 or 5 seconds most of the time.
I reset my talents about a dozen times to finally get a ranged build I was happy with. I went with the basic skill that knocks back (forget the name) and rapid fire for core. Skipped subterfuge entirely and took caltrops and dash. Death trap for ultimate but only because it looked (and sounds) awesome. I know it’s probably not the best ult to use for a range build but rain of arrows didn’t tickle my pickle. I took Vulnerability passives when I could and in the end had a fun build.
I completely understand and support You.
I am a true “hunter”. Why?
In every game I play, I will chose range class, hunter, ranger, marksman, I like bows, I
like to kite enemies, I like to be in a last row, to scan battlefield so I can make tactics and report my teammates (Scout)…
I have 4000 hours as Demon Hunter in D3, 10 years or so as Hunter in wow,
and I can bet that EVERY (dedicated WoW rogue, at least TBC expansion) will say "
I hate hunters" :). And hunters would say… I hate rogues.
Dont get me wrong… I like “rogue” class but AS melee class…
And I like range class but with range skills, and PETS?? (where are they).
Why didnt they put 2 “pets” instead of melee skills?
When I saw “Raven” skill on Druid… I LITTERALLY cried. RAVEN… demon hunter? cmon
They could give us at least One little pet to poke next to us.
Conclusion
They put two classes in one.
Maybe because they dont have dedicated “hunter” team (guy)…
Maybe because they dont have time… I dont know.
I only hope next class on their list is Amazon…
…or Beastmaster… 
I absolutely love the design and direction of Rogue.
So much so - for the very first time in my personal history of gaming - I’m not starting Caster.
The mobility, run and gun, cc, aoe, dot … I love the kit.
TB in OB
Ranged in SS
As much as I enjoyed the playstyle of TB - I’ll be maining Ranged to start.
Can’t wait to see how the builds I’ve crafted perform in later game!!
It will all boil down to what gear drops and when. That’ll be the determining factor of course.
If the game pushes me to melee - so be it. Farm Farm Farm until proper Ranged gear is acquired.
glhf @ launch!
