Rogue 101: Difference between revisions

Recently, there have been several different discussions about how a rogue can be played? Opinions varied between high ac and low ac; choices of weapons; to use magic as protective supports or as offensive weapons etc... All these stems from the fact that the rogue is easily the most versatile character class in Diablo Classic (IMO at least). Play her as a mini-mage, a warrior or an archer. It makes little difference as she can be just as effective and powerful no matter which style you play.

How should one play a rogue? To answer this, you might want to consider the following questions:

# Would you prefer the "safer" high-ac approach, or the "more delicate" low-ac approach?

# For your weapons, would you rather use the "traditional" weapon (ie. the bow), or maximize the use of your high dex by using sword(or club)/shield?

# With regards to magic, would you prefer using magic as a means of defense and transportation, or as a primary means of attack as well?

# Are you content to play the rogue as it is, or would you want to try out more challenging variants?

# you will very seldom get hit by enemies and can thus survive more easily against mobs.

# ac gives NO protection, IIRC, against any form of magical attack such as spit, bloodstars n fireballs,# lose the possibility of having a beneficial prefix on your armour (good suffix are hard to come by on awesome plates too),

# IMO, it really is quite difficult to obtain a good high-ac armor with a good suffix.

 

Typical examples:

# have a beneficial prefix such as +resist on the armour, thus freeing up a jewelry slot for +mana,

# good low-ac armour are easier to come by since any base item type will do,

# most good combinations (such as obsidian/stars) are purchasable at griswold.

# if not careful, will get torn apart vs melee creatures as they have autohit against you.

 

Typical examples:

# Obsidian (or other +resist) shirt of Stars/Sorcery/Precision/Giants etc...

# very fast rate of fire, the only weapon a rogue can stun an advocate with,

# bows usually tends to deal more damage per unit time than melee weapons (except CC) for rogues,

# very high to-hit considering the amount of dex the rogue possesses,

# kills the enemies before the enemies reaches you, thus greater safety.

# no shield, thus no blocking and the loss of a prefix and suffix,

# durability goes down quite fast (small point since gold is abundant),

# blocking, thus allowing less hits to go through, hence less damage taken,

# much slower swing rate than bows, thus some monsters cannot be stunlocked,

* Mana shield -- the rogue has pretty decent magic and mana, so why not make use of it?

* Stone Curse -- very helpful for keeping enemies at bay and reducing the number of enemies you have to face.

* Chain Lightning (L) -- can be potentially VERY damaging (ie. kill a pack of balrogs in hell/hell with one cast?)

* Bone Spirit (M) -- can be used to attract enemies from around corners, otherwise useless.

* Golem -- this supernatural being can be used both in offence and defence. Beware of bloodstars though.

Another possible helm is the Gotterdamerung (ac60, -40% light, +20 to all, NO resist). The major drawback here is the lack of resistance, which can really hurt. One way out is to leave it unidentified and use it for the 60 ac it provides (which IMO is not all that great for a rogue which already has lots of ac due to high dex.

Yet another possible but "not-so-all-round" helm is the Helm of Sprits (ac6-8, 5% lifesteal). Drawback here is the lack of ac and the lack of other benefits. The lifesteal effect can be rather useful when using the CC setup but not as good otherwise (as rogue's melee damage is rather  

b) Uniques would include naj's light plate and the scavenger's carapace.   

* The naj's is an good mini-mage equipment, providing magic, resistance, spell level.

* The sc gives -15 dfe as well as lightning resist, thus reducing chance of being stunned.

As can be seen, there are so many different styles to play a rogue with vastly different equipment setups.

 

A purely obsessive setup with a total of 408% resist fire (out of a max of 420). Is it efficient? Nope. Is it an overkill on resist fire? Yes. Do i have difficulty playing this character? Yes. But was it fun? Yes (for me at least).

'''Wiki note:''' Most of these links are dead now, more than a decade after this guide was written. The best info from them is preserved elsewhere in this wiki.

 

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