Shattered Kingdoms

I don't mind damage lowered from backstab or if you sneak behind a pet only being able to get a single stab in. There shouldn't be a 100% affective defense to backstab imho.

This is not a new argument. It is why rogues are still dumpster tier since even a level 1 character can nullify a rogue.

There is stone skin, mirror image and you can keep your pulse up to avoid backstab in addition to putting a pet behind you.

The fact that evasion makes the rogue harder to kill is laughable. They are just as squishy as bard. Only they get shield block and the bard doesn't.

I can even argue that rogues don't need envenom. Their attacks are fine, and they do not need cause critical added to their backstabs. It is their inability to overcome the most basic of formations that is frustrating.

Rogues are just fine in PVP combat.

There are plenty of rogue weapons that ignore stone skin, there are ways to get past mirror image and not many people can even GET mirror image.

Rogues are one of the scariest things in group combat, since just the presence of one requires squishies in the other formation to put themselves in the second rank with a pet behind them, and thus in range of reaching weapons.

Backstab is literally a 1-shot kill on everything in the game except Barbarians who counterstrike it, including even mercenaries, if you are properly buffed.

Of course there need to be ways to counter it.

Circle stab isn't exactly something you can just ignore, either. 2 circle stabs will usually kill mages, maybe even just 1. 3-4 would probably kill anything in the game.

The only place rogues suck is PVE combat, and that's for none of the 'easy to avoid' backstab reasons. Evasion helped make rogues much more viable in PVE as they can tank gas blasts/fire blasts/etc much better now and keep dishing out their damage.

It is much easier to get mirror image than true sight. Like much.

You could claim the same for cleave and you have less ways to avoid it and no one seems to claim it is too powerful. (I would)

What if hamstring could work on anyone regardless of formation? Or give it a chance to work past a pet for a reduced chance ect.

To avoid cleave, stand behind a pet or two. Do we want to make it so that you can cleave someone in the middle or back row while the hellion is standing behind a pet, standing middle row? There are ways to avoid everything.
Nobody is going to be able to kill anything anytime with their one major move.
Just have to find the right situation where you’re going to be successful in getting the gank.

Idk. In short, I don’t think rogues need any more advantages added to them. Especially having envenom added. Evasion increases survivability ten fold.

You’re just fine, bub.

Just in the interest of adding to the discussion, I have/had the exact same problem with rogues Tragonis is describing, but I also mostly agree with what everyone is saying that most changes to correct the issue Tragonis is describing would be hard to balance.

Backstab is very powerful, but it's also one of the more of the more easily negated abilities. Unlike things like stone skin or mirror image, both of which I think are good countermeasures that are either class restricted or generally require active usage of items, just plopping a pet behind you to negate a lot of damage passively is a powerful and simple tactic specifically useful against rogues.

You take away that tactic though, and many casters and other low-hp classes become easy pickings. Lots of tweaks could be made to backstab to allow partial usage, but you're going to come back to damage balance and all the things that make super high damage abilities more difficult to make "fair".

I personally think having a lot of the rogues weakness/strength based off a single interaction isn't the most fun, and I am a big proponent of rogues getting a more utilitarian damage option that wouldn't be the same level of damage of backstab by a long shot, but would be more useful in longer PvE and against heavy armor classes. Specifically something like a damage/stacking armor reduction effect or damage/damage reduction effect. My thought was since rogues receive maces anyway it might be enjoyable to give them an option to go more "highwayman" or "bruiser" and actually use them in some of the situations where the current set up doesn't exactly shine.

I don't think it's "fun" that random pets are so good at stopping one of the core rogue skills, but removing that weakness would probably require a lot more balancing of the ability itself to bring the damage in-line with overall expectations.

The primary problem is that backstab is an anti-fun ability.

Getting insta-gibbed is not fun conflict. Yeah, sure it's fun for the rogue in that dickish 'haha I screwed that guy' fashion.

But it's not fun to play against and the only way to 'counter it' is by preventing it entirely. Like, sure, getting randomly charmed by somebody isn't fun, but you enchant your stuff with willpower to avoid that landing. There's no way to 'protect yourself' against backstab except preventing it from being used on you.

Especially when abilities like mimic and now Streetwise exist. A rogue can track you down anywhere, with no difficulty whatsoever.

Just the fact that a rogue is ONLINE makes people on the game rearrange their formations and go out of their way to make sure they keep up more buffs than normal.

If the ability to counter backstab is nerfed in any fashion, then stuff like Streetwise needs to basically be removed from the rogue class entirely, and backstab (and circlestab) damage would probably need to be cut to 3/4 or maybe even 1/2 of what it currently is. Otherwise, playing caster classes would basically be impossible, since any Rogue could 100% find you and insta-kill you any time they want with about 2 minutes of effort.

Rogues can flat out instakill even mercenaries with backstab, if they put in the work to get properly buffed. And they have an ability with absolutely no drawbacks that lets them find someone anytime, anywhere.

The whole idea behind rogues/assassins/etc, in most iterations of any game I've ever played is that they're designed around waiting for the right time to strike. Rogues now have a 100% accurate scry ability that they can use whenever they want for what is essentially no cost with no drawback. If you can't bide your time, wait for an opening, and get in a backstab off of that.....You have group combat abilities for a reason.

I would argue under that kind of definition almost any strictly massive damage ability would qualify as somewhat anti-fun, but to hear lots of people tell it they enjoyed the game much more when ambush was a melee insta-gib, one of the cabals provided a repeatable instagib, etc. Not really agreeing or disagreeing, just pointing out that even on something as glaring as one-shot kills there has been disagreement on how much they are wanted in the game.

Personally, I would rather abilities actually be able to be used more frequently, even if that means they might need a nerf to allow for that. They are class-defining abilities for a reason, and it's simply more fun when your abilities have frequent use scenarios. That idea doesn't just apply to rogues of course, I think everyone playing every class would like all their abilities to at least feel useful. However, when you are looking at abilities that are just pure damage abilities, there really isn't much to tweak other than the damage and how it's applied/prevented. I also think rogues, prior to their recent changes, suffered from too many of their abilities living in the same niche. Backstab, circle stab, hamstring, while they are all options in slightly different situations, they have always seemed too close to each other to really feel like fun and different abilities.

Also, any game I've played where rogues weren't pigeonholed it was more of a trade off. You could either do massive front-loaded damage against low hp targets while being relatively squishy yourself, or you could disrupt and/or weaken stronger foes via a death by a thousand cuts strategy. Debuffs, DoTs, short term survivability increases, escapes, etc.

I will say, regardless of backstab, I think the package given to rogues was mostly successful. I have seen more people trying out rogues since the changes. It is always possible that some re-balancing is needed or desired in places after a change gets more thoroughly broken in, but I'm pretty happy that it at least inspired people to try them again.

Chiming in late here. I think the concept behind evasion is good but it's way overdone. Total spell immunity to a massive list of spells? Rogues, while being squishy, have always been compensated with huge dps and utility skills. There's no shortage of logs of rogues owning face. Bards, on the other hand, could have actually used this mega buff.