rogue advice

[Fragbait]

Hi!


I am having quite a hard time in nightmare caves (multi) right now, I thought you could perhaps tell me what I should seek for with my rogue.
Midora-Lherok is lvl 29, and these are her

stats:
strength: 55/111
magic: 59/105
dexterity: 112/135
vitality: 45/68

life: 160
mana: 191

ac: 153
cth: 117%
dam: 37-64

resist magic: 37%
resist fire: max
resist lightning: 37%

equipment:
Savage Long war Bow of the Heavens 112%/+13
Amber Ring of Brilliance 20%/+12
Amber Ring of Power 17%/+14
Ruby Amulet of the Stars 54%/+10
Glorious Helm of Giants AC 7 , +79%/+19
Blessed Plate of Brilliance AC 57, +100%/+11

reading glasses(->124 magic):
Staff of Wizardry +26
Plate of Sorcery +17
recovery gear:
Soldier's Bastard Sword of Speed +20%cth/+78%dam
Storm Shield
Brutal Short War Bow of the Stars +91%/+10
Blue Amulet of the Dark +12%/-40%

spells:
Healing - lvl 9
Fire Wall - lvl 7
Stone Curse - lvl 6
Mana Shield - lvl 9
Fireball - lvl 6
Chain Lightning - lvl 4


I'm having trouble especially against monsters that have a quick attack. I have no faster hit recovery, maybe that's the point, and I know that my resists could be better...

Any suggestions are welcome!


Greetings, Fragbait

[krishta]

Hiya Fragbait,

I have similar problems with my Rogues sometimes.

Your AC probably needs a bit of a boost. Fewer hits means less time recovering.
I've got two rogues, one has AC about 260 or so the other has, um, real low AC.
Can't recall exactly right now, but she wears leather, so she has no effective
AC. Both are somewhere in their 30's levelwise. They play quite differently.
The higher AC allows me to be somewhat more carefree about wandering
about the dungeons. The low AC on "Kristha1" means I have to work slow
and careful, like a Nekkid Mage.

Apart from AC concerns I find I just plain don't like the caves. I went straight
from Nightmare Cats to Nightmare Hell. The caves drive me nuts, I'm always
scaring up more Bad Guys than I can handle. Especially those lightning demons.
When they close with you and start that two-armed swing they'll rip you to shreds.

Krishta

[Thecla]

No doubt, caves are the nastiest area for rogues. Faster hit recovery isn't the issue, because you shouldn't be getting hit in the first place. Yes, if fast attack guys, like lightning demons or dogs, get hold of you then you're toast; but that's why you need to make sure that it doesn't happen in the first place. Same with resists. You gear looks ok, but you could try to get hold of more +all items that will raise your damage and make sure you stun consistently (your bow couldn't be any better at this point though). I guess it's more a matter of going carefully and using the terrain to your advantage.

I highly recommend Cyrene's comments on rogues in caves:

http://realmsbeyond.net/diablo/stratcdcaves.html

[malach_cha_movis]

Hi Fragbait,

Wow! I cannot believe i am actually responding to a strategy question in this forum. I know absolutely nothing. I am still struggling to get past lvl 14 normal Hell with both a clvl 25 mage and a clvl 25 rogue.

A couple of ideas occur to me however, both strategical and tactical. I might be wrong, but on a strategic level, your rogue seems to lack focus. Is she specializing in melee or magic or ranged attacks.

If in magic, she needs more mana. I would think that a base magic level of 81 is attainable and is the necessary amount of magic you would want to have for adventuring. I believe a rogue only gets 1.5 times magic. The prefixes of dragon, drake, and serpent are more valuable to a rogue in supplying mana than using a magic modifier like brilliance (unless it is wizardry in a ring).

That leaves suffices for +all and +dex. I truly do not understand why you would want to have any object with a brilliance or even sorcery suffix. Where are all those suffices of perfection, or if necessary, lesser dex prefixes. Again if I am not mistaken a rogue gets damage from both strength and dexterity, even she is using a sword or shield. Since for a rogue, dex is valuable in two areas, it seems to me that it is beneficial to try to build dex as much as possible and forget about strength (except as needed to equip items). With the +alls, most useful for rogues (?), a suffix that adds strength is superfluous. Even if you want to be a sword and shield mage (Clive’s Cudgel) an extra point of dex will give you the same damage increase as a point of strength. (Lurkers, is that correct?)

As far as resists go, until Midora-Lherok finds really high level resist all prefixes, it is probably better to stock up on individual resists, maybe using a storage character, if that is considered legit play, to keep all the extra items. They are cheaper to buy and easier to find. This is especially true, if Midora-Lherok goes the low AC mana shield route. That way she can max out her resistance to correspond to the danger on that lvl.

I believe that the above ideas would apply to the building any type of rogue.

Now for some tactical advice. If Midora-Lherok wants to specialize in ranged combat, and with the bow she has, I can understand why, then I think she is lacking in discovery spells, either in her spell book or on scrolls. Golem is the most valuable, not for his destructive capabilities but for searching for monsters that are not susceptible to fire. Guardian and Elemental are cheaper and can be used for any monsters susceptible to fire.

My mage makes good use of the latter two specials for combat as well, but that is because he has loads of mana to utilize (he cannot yet use Golem for combat, as that spell is way too mana expensive and is not yet at a high enough spell level).

I notice that Midora-Lherok doesn't have Flame Wave. I think that is smart as long as she is going for bow specialization. Firewall can perform the same defensive function and it is a lot cheaper. In addition, again if I am not mistaken, the Firewall spell level does not have to be much higher than level eight. Am I right; the only effect Slvl has on Firewall is duration? If a minute's duration is not enough, she is toast anyway.

In the caves, if memory serves, the monsters on any one level exhibit only one magic type attack. So try to max out that resistance.
Another technique that might prove useful, and not only against spitters, is based on stealth. Use your amulet of night as a weapon. By activating only a few monsters, using discovery spells and retreating behind a series of firewalls, your bow and healing potions should do the rest. Also, getting yourself in a corner with only a few monsters then using chain lightening or fireballs and having lots of full blue pots handy is another technique that works for me. Make use of the rivers of lava and choke points. With a rogue, chokepoints are extremely useful, as monsters can be killed at a distance, as they pass through the choke point one at a time.

The spitters always give me trouble. But they usually hide in the caves rather than in the lava fields, so it is possible to activate only a few using guardian. Just have your highest-level natural spell in the ready box and use the guardian scrolls that Midora stocked up. Also, a high-level golem or two works wonders. I also love sneak attacks. I set up my portal, not too far but far enough from a staircase. Then I retreat to through one hatch or the other, and after I have restocked, come down through the other hatch, and kill monsters before they are aware that I am there. Wash and repeat until there are no more.

Of course, I have only tested these ideas out in normal caves. And many of them will not work using the more difficult variants that I have been reading about.

You probably know all this already, but this way I can demonstrate that I am not strategically challenged, just mouse and keyboard challenged.

BTW - I thought your posts in the cheating vs. non-legit thread were very interesting and well thought out.

Malach_cha_Movis
:unsure: And that's what i think!

P.S. I started writing this when there were no responses and now there are two.

P.S.S. BTW - Most of these ideas are not my own. They are a collected assembledge of ideas, i reseached from other threads, other articles, and other websites. Then i tried them out and these are the ones that worked best for me.

[Fragbait]

Hi,

Couple of things I seem to have forgotten:

Midora-Lherok is an ordinary Rogue that deals her damage chiefly with her (ranged) bow.
She is using magic only to complement her bow damage: lots of Healing, and the occasional CL or FB.

The items I use are the best I have found so far (that's what I think at least). I just recently upgraded to this plate and the Amber Ring with the magic suffix, so actually I'm quite pleased with them. I will keep searching for better items, of course, but the real dream items are hard to get as I don't trade.

I did not cite all my spells, just those I found important. I may very well have flame wave at low levels, I don't remember now.

As to what concerns strategic suggestions: I do use a lot of them, like using narrow terrain to my advantage, hiding behind barrels and venturing carefully etc. I am not exactly a noob, but I might as well learn some more tricks...
My problems occur mainly when I make a step and I wake up several monsters that are especially nasty: spitter demons, lightning demons and those high hp Flayed Ones. Combos of them are also 'nice'. It usually ends up with me having alerted 1-2 Flayed Ones, 2-3 Lightning Demons and 2-3 Spitters. While I'm trying to kill some and then retreat, I sometimes manage to get surrounded (in larger rooms especially, or when the Lightning Demons find an alternative route around semi-long walls), and once 2 or more try to hit me, I can't escape anymore. Mind you, I have nothing against an occasional death or two, this makes the game more fun not less, but lately this happens too often...

Also, I can't confirm the Golem experience. Maybe my slvl is too low, but he's dead in less than 2 seconds even when only encountering 1-2 spitters. I guess this happens also because his HP are somewhat related to my manapool.

I guess I could use more spells to get some crowd control, but I thought I could handle this the way a rogue is supposed to - with her bow. Feel free to convince me here...

Anyways, thanks everyone for their input, the rogue/caves guide was a very good read. I conclude that I'll just have to be more careful and use the terrain for me even more.
Also, please continue to comment on my rogue. I still appreciate suggestions muchly!


Greetings, Fragbait

[Nystul]

-> mana: 191
-> Stone Curse - lvl 6

Since you have a decent level of stonecurse, and enough mana to cast it repeatedly, you don't need much of anything else to dominate the game. Just advance slowly to make sure you don't activate too many monsters, shoot the bad guys with your bow, and stonecurse them as often as you feel you need to. If you find yourself staring at a pink screen, it means you didn't stonecurse enough. This isn't the fastest, most fun, or most efficient way to go about things, but it is quite effective.

The bow shooting part is actually optional. If you prefer to kick statues until they crack that should work fairly well too. In that case, however, you would have to lure the bad guys to a safe area before petrifying them. Otherwise you risk activating a lynch mob as you mozy on up to the statue to kick it.

I'd suggest using the bow, though.

When it comes to using a spell like chain lightning in the caves, use extreme care. You can wake up practically the whole level with a single cast, and that will make things a lot more difficult. Limiting your number of enemies to a manageable number is crucial in Diablo.

[Thecla]

I sometimes manage to get surrounded (in larger rooms especially, or when the Lightning Demons find an alternative route around semi-long walls)

Just one more comment --- you shouldn't ever get surrounded. Clear the levels in a systematic way, and always have a cleared line of retreat available. If you do wake up too many nasty monsters (i.e. lightning demons and spitters; flayed ones shouldn't be dangerous), go back the way you came in a retreat-fire-retreat pattern (teleport makes this faster and easier, but it's by no means necessary) and string them out (judicious stone curses help here to reduce the number following you, while you take the remainder out one-by-one with your bow, as rogues should ;) ), even if it means retracing your steps across the whole level.

What is essential is to clear out the starting area around the stairs. You may want to go very slowly at first and stone curse every single monster that you activate until you have some room to work in. Getting trapped by a large mob with nowhere to retreat will get you killed.

[Lord_Olf]

Hail Fragbait,

first thing that comes to mind for rogues is to have a look at the Chance to Hit (cth). Nobody pointed this out yet, but I think it's a little bit low. Just have a look at the following calculator:

http://www.dpsyche.com/cth.html

For your lvl, it gives an average useful-cth as 170. OK, this is for hell monsters, and I don't know how much lower it should be for Caves, but 116% seems just a little low to me. Especially for the caves (which I also hate to do with rogues *g*), where it can happen that you get "rushed" by big packs of monsters, and every arrow fired has to hit. I think this could easily be remedied by giving up some STR (for example, swap the helm for something more useful).

Also, Jarulf says in his guide (Chapter 4.2.1) that the Spitters attack is magic (I wasn't sure, so I had to look it up). So, you might get Magic resistance up, and raising Lightning resistance wouldn't hurt either, especially for the caves.

So, easiest thing to do would be, in my opinion, to go looking for a Resist Helm of (Dex suffix) for startes. It would mean some shopping, but I think it would help you quite a bit.

Also, for equipment, all I can say is "Do some Laz runs" (if feasible). The bow is great, but especially for jewelry, there's nothing like Laz runs. If you have a mage with good teleport, that would be the icing of the cake. OK, someone might say that a character should play with what he finds and be left untwinked, but I think that a mage just has a huge advantage here, just teleporting through DLVL 13 and 14 and then killing Lazarus and his pack. Don't want to do this with my warrior... If you need to put the items on another char then, I'd gladly be of help, as that's my problem: Playing multi with different chars and not being able to get those nice items my mage finds over to the other chars...

Also, I would probably forget the caves for now, seeing that you're just one clvl away from Hell difficulty. Get to where the money is and buy elixiers from Adria like there's now tomorrow. Tedious, yes, and maybe contrary to your style of play, but it's what I would do.

Well, I hope this helps, and if you're up for a game, just PM or EMail me, I'd be interested!

Take care,

Lord_Olf

PS: For the sake of completeness: Check out these excellent guides:

The Bible, Jarulf's Guide
http://members.core.com/~dfrease/JGFrame.html

Freshman Diablo
http://www.arewehavingfunyet.com/diablo/diablo.shtml

Some good calculators (and other stuff, too!)
http://www.dpsyche.com/

[Fragbait]

Hello Lord_Olf,

Um - visiting the dpsyche site and using its calculator gave me values of a maximum of useful cth of 81%...
(Nightmare, Rogue, Lvl 29, using arrows as attack)
Don't know how you got your values.
Yup, I always like to have a new copy of JG on my computers, that's not the prob.
Maybe I'll do some shopping for a new helmet (I used to need the +strength mod with my late full plate mail), but I'm most definitely not up to doing lots of runs. That's just not what I want. And actually - I'm no fan of twinking either, indeed I only have this one multiplayer char at the moment.

As to what concerns your offer: I would really like to! Don't know if I find the time the next days (busy learning) but if I do, I'll surely let you know. I was upset by cheaters and started to play on the swedish channel only, but still - it would be cool to be able to lay one's stuff on the floor without having to fear that the pubbie will grab it up!
Thanks for the links anyway.


I want to thank everyone for your input. I'll think it over!


Greetings, Fragbait

[Lord_Olf]

Hail Fragbait,

I re-checked the numbers; sorry, you're absolutely right... my best guess is that trying to scroll down with my mousewheel, I probably changed something with the preferences. My apologies!

As for playing: Best thing will be to PM or EMail me one day or so in advance; I have both a Warrior and a Mage at LVL 34, which should complement your rogue nicely. Or one can always start over, I wouldn't mind having a no-twink character also.

Well, good luck with your learning!

Take care,
Lord_Olf

[the Langolier]

To-Hit for arrows is not a very easy value to calculate exactly. It depends on to-hit% boosting equipment, dexterity, and the distance of the target (time it takes to hit it actually).

Because of this, the calculator assumes maximum base dexterity for each class and time-value of 7 (think of how far your arrow goes by the time you can fire another arrow - that is the distance the calculator approximates). To get a closer estimate, simply subtract 5 points from the numbers displayed for every 10 dex you lack.

(250-135)/2 = 58

So, you will need to add 58% to the to-hit it displays. Which would bring the total to-hit up to 140% or so. Even at 117% you have now though, you'll be hitting the enemies 1-2 squares away from you every time.

[Malakar]

The to-hit bonus from dex for arrows is not divided by 2.

[the Langolier]

That is true, but the calculator reports the to-hit displayed in the character screen which goes up by 1% every two dexterity points. This accounts for the other half.

The rogue would need to increase dex by 135 to reach the amount of assumed dexterity - resulting in an increase of only 58% to the char screen.

[Sabra]

Hey There Fragbait

You have so much to-hit as a Bow Rogue that it's not even worth discussion.

Stone Curse the ones in the back. Retreat a bit. Shoot the closest, un-sc'ed ones. Rinse and repeat. Pump your damage adders and plus all above all else.

Retreat! Reatreat! Retreat! And if you think this is tough, just wait till you get to 16 and the west room! This stuff in Caves is but a warm up! ;)

[Thecla]

Stone Curse the ones in the back.

Personally, I usually stone-cursed the ones in the front to provide more separation from the ones that can still follow you.

Probably it depends a bit on how tough the monsters are relative to your lvl: if they are easy enough that you can kill off the front monsters before they reach you, you can afford to sc the rear ones (and it may not matter which ones you sc anyway); but if you're retreating large distances to spread out the mobs, and killing them off one-on-one, you're better off scing one of the closest monsters.

[Malakar]

Also if your stone curse is pretty low level, you might want to curse the ones in the back, to ensure that you are outside of their range by the time they reanimate.

[Aykavil]

Firewall.

Apology of Firewall:
Firewall is one of, if not the single best spell in Diablo, especially for Rogues.
Main uses : 1/ A pack of range attackers that stand still (they are toast)
2/ A pack of monsters trapped by wall/fence/whatever
3/ Cast at your feet, and toast ennemies as they come close
The point 3/ requires that you stand still so that ennemies must stay in the firewall to hit you
But you won't be swarmed for long !
Caveats : 1/ beware diagonals 2/ beware fire-immune 3/ doesn't stop Steel Lords/Blood knights/etc
Drawback : it prevents you from advancing fast in the level, as you must wait that they time out.
USE if you are weak and your ennemies are strong
DON't USE if you are Strong and ennemies are weak

Miscellaneous comments on the other posts.
Your Rogue is pretty much ok for the level you are playing in. Your equipment is GOOD. I personnaly prefer to play Caves level
with rogue, especially Rogue/firewall combo as there is place to move around your walls. If you want to Min/max powerplay, though, stick to normal/hell, find items
and buy elixirs, but it might be less fun.
Stone curse is hugely mana-intensive for mid-levels characters. I use it on Steel Lords (and co) whith weak rogues and mages. I use it on bosses. I may use it on advocates as a mage. I use it on advocates as a high level warrior.

IMHO, most strategy posts are biased towards uber powerful characters, hence FireBall popularity. I find Firewall incredibly powerful for low-midlevel characters,
and on top of that, only high-slvl firewall is really annoying as it lasts for ever.

-- Aykavil

[Fragbait]

Hi!

I'm sorry I'm bumping this old topic up here, but I'm just so happy today:

Midora-Lherok of course still exists, and today, she finally managed to get her third dot.
Yay! She's lvl 40 already, but thanks to my not so careful playing habits, this task proved to be too difficult/ time-consuming until today.

As if that ain't enough, she found some great items the last few days that make her even stronger:

71 AC FPM +119%AC, +19 Vit

Royal Circlet (my first!)

and...

a perfect Drag/Zod amu, +50/+20 !!!

Man, I was jumping on my chair. She switches this goody now with her 40%resall/+18 Dex amu. Along with her Savage LWB of the Heavens, she gets along quite well. Admittedly 251 AC is a bit low, especially in hell, but her most significant weak point are her rings: +19%resall, +17%resall/+14 Str.
I got two 'of the heavens' on the ground, and use them for recovery with my Windy and a ~137 AC plate (sometimes my Constricting Ring, too), but most times I prefer the max on all resistance slots. And given the fact that my motivaton is going to sink now that I got my third dot (finally), I guess she'll have to live with those rings. Heck, most women would be glad about such jewels!
Ahh.
Much better now :w00t:


Greetings, Fragbait

[Daemon]

Grats on the 3rd Dot and the sweet, sweet finds! :D

I was thinkink of fireing up D1 again, I got some high level chars, one of each all over lvl40, and some lower level variants.

We could hook up and play us a game sometimes.

Update: Sad news... As I re-installed D1 and loaded my character back ups, I realized they are not up to date with what I had before my comp got a virus. My Rogue is now level45 instead of lvl46, no SO bad, my Warrior is 41 instead of 42, but on the verge of leveling up. The big loss is my Sorcerer's shield, his very near perfect Jade Large Shield of Brilliance, +29%ra/+15all, which has been eaten by the abyss. Well, I went back and read 'The Bare Necessities' to feel better! :D

-D

[RoYaL]

could it be that the perfect Drag/Zod amu was dropped by an other player?.....