Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Rogue's Dilema

From what I've seen it looks like much of the problems plaguing the scoundrel in the previous game are still plaguing it. I'll list some here.

1. Backstab isn't a dagger feature. Backstab is the only reason to take a dagger, and essentially the defining and most necessary piece of a Scoundrel build. It's a talent tax.

2. Backstab only affects daggers and knives. There is another rogue weapon, blackjack. While most melee users can swap out weapons for better options against certain enemy types. Scoundrels are stuck using a weapon highly sub-par against skeletons. If there's long stretches of almost only skeletons, it's going to be an issue again.

3. Guerilla. This is by far the most egregious offender. A scoundrels bread and butter in any game is the sneak attack, it's the basis of the archetype. So for daggers to be the single WORST sneak attack weapon seems like a serious oversight. It's all about percentages, and daggers have the smallest AP cost, meaning sneaking before striking doesn't provide them ANY damage boost over just attacking again, in fact, it's generally a damage loss. Compare this to a big two hander that's getting a much larger damage bonus, both if you sneak during combat, or if you sneak to start combat.

4. Mobility skills. Mobility being baked into the passive bonus is nice, however, the fact that cloak and dagger is a higher cost tactical retreat, with a longer CD AND a downside is a bit silly. Placing smoke down at my initial point might be thematic, but all it's doing is obscuring my allies in smoke, making it more difficult for them to back me up. Now, smoke at my arrival location would be useful, cutting off my enemy from his allies and making it more difficult for enemies to target me.

Those were my primary complaints from the previous installment. Not to say I won't be purchasing the game if they aren't fixed (I certainly will), but it would be nice if these were addressed (especially Guerilla).

As a brief unrelated side note, it'd be lovely if Witchcraft (now Necromancy) could get a related trait.

1. Agree that the talent tax is lame. Reduces the ability for interesting builds. No other class has a mandatory talent like that. I kind of get it's purpose, since it's a powerful bonus, but overall it's annoying.

2. A blackjack, backstabbing weapon would be nice. Maybe even just something like blunt daggers, I dunno.

3. The way I see it, sneaking in combat is often more of a defensive/repositioning tool. Get a bunch of aggro on your rogue, then hide behind something (including smoke) and sneak, then come back when the enemies have turned their back. Guerilla is a bonus for the first attack/repositioning attacks, not something to be used on every attack. Sure, Guerilla is arguably more of a bonus on a two-hander, but you don't get the guaranteed backstab crit from a two-hander.

4. You have to be smart about when you use cloak and dagger. The smoke can just as well block enemies, too, if you use it at the right time. I dunno if it should be more AP/higher CD than tactical retreat, but it does have the advantage of being usable while sneaking/invisible, and the smoke is a bonus if used right.

I actually find rogue to be playing much better than D:OS1. Much fewer skeletons right at the beginning helps a lot, too. The Pawn talent is really nice on rogues and helps a lot with repositioning for backstabs without wasting AP.

Daggers are useless without backstabbing, as it has been pointed out above. Id suggest a fix would be to add +10-15% damage to backstabs as well as allowing backstabs.

I'm a bit torn. To learn backstabbing means to have learned where the vital points are, even tough on point of backstabbing seems hardly enough to know them always. Just because you hold a dagger, you wouldn't know where to find the vital points.

Perhaps better tie backstabbing in with Scoundrel at let backstab damage improve with getting better at scoundreling?

I agree with much of the sentiment of the thread.

1. It is true that Backstab is a powerful Talent, allowing you to have 100% criticals, but unlike every other class archtype, Rogues are pretty much forced into taking it pretty much immediately, which means that you get only one choose-able Talent at level 1 or 2, and after that it's a long time until level 6. "Talent tax" is the right way to put it.

2. Blackjacks should absolutely be added in as a second Backstab-capable weapon. Complete agreement from me here.

3. I also find Guerrilla very underwhelming. It's an AP-loser for single-wielding, and when dual-wielding, it gives you 3 AP worth of damage for 3 AP, which means you're just as well off not bothering with it.

Guerrilla is only good when:
- Attacking from out of combat to start a fight (0 AP cost).
- Using a skill which has powerful sneak attack damage already (The Skill is what's providing the power)
- If you need to finish an enemy off, but it would take 2 dual-wielding attacks and you have only 3 AP left. (Very situational and a questionable use of AP compared to other possible options)

That's it. It just does not seem useful to take a Talent point on.



The AI will be fixed to look for sneaking characters to prevent being stabbed by someone right behind them for several turns. So that will mean you'll need to move somewhere to hide, in which case it will cost you more AP to move back into backstab position while sneaking.




It kinda already does, since Scoundrel increases the damage critical strikes do.

1. That's why I want to put Backstabbing together with scoundrel and take it away of just being a secure crit. Bakstabbing should give only little extra damage on low scoundrel, but even higher on high scoundrel, because leveling scoundrel means, you learn, where the vital spots are. Perhaps always inflicting bleeding. But of course some monster should be resistant or even immune to backstabbing. Why should a skeleton or zombie care for backstabbing? Don't think they have any really 'vital' spots.

2. Not sure, what a Blackjack add new, it's just a kind of smaller club, but hardly anything that could 'backstab'. A garrote would be more fitting, something that could mute mages if they have no armor when used while sneaking, I guess.

3. I'm pretty sure, that is how 'Guerilla' is meant to be used and not with 'sneak' > 'attack' > 'sneak' > 'attack'. Guerilla tactics are ambush tactics, so why should it be balanced for more than just 'ambushing'? Being able to instantly kill someone before the fight even started, can be extremly strong, sometimes perhaps to strong, because somebody already instantly killed Alexander wich such a combination, if I remember correctly.

1. I'm a little wary about making backstabs very weak early on, and then very strong later on. Rogues don't do much damage with regular attacks, they rely on criticals to remain competitive with fighters. This is especially the case in D:OS 2, which has removed speed and increasing AP. Rogues get the same amount of AP as fighters, and they only get a little extra movement from Scoundrel.

It's also inherently difficult to balance being very weak early with being very strong early. Early characters might be so weak that no one enjoys playing them to reach the end game, but the end game they might be powerful to the point of being broken.

The downside to making immune to backstabs/criticals enemies, such as all undead, means that Rogues won't be competitive at all in those fights and cannot really do anything. This could be a significant problem for several stretches of the game, since areas tend to have several encounters with the same types of enemies. After you escape Fort Joy, seven out of 11 combat encounters (64%) are versus an all-undead or mostly-undead group. That's a long time for a Rogue to be near-worthless in combat.


2. Blackjacks add crushing-type damage as an alternative to only being able to use backstab with piercing-type damage, which skeletons are highly resistant to.


3. You can make that argument and that's fine, although I think Larian disagrees. They have added some skills in D:OS 2 which give bonuses for being in Sneak in combat. Hence, they seem to think using Sneak in combat is a valid tactic.

And I have a second rebuttal: Guerrilla is a Badly Designed Talent because it is very situational. Most of the time you're better off using your AP for something else or saving it for the next turn. Even in the cases I outlined...

- Attacking from out of combat puts you into an unfavorable position in the turn order.
- You're using Sneak because of the power of the skill, and the skill is so powerful on its own that you can get benefits from it without needing Guerrilla.
- It can be very situational to have an enemy within 0 AP which will die from a dual-wielding backstab at 150% power AND the Rogue has 3 AP and does not have Adrenaline AND which no other party member could deal with instead.

I really doubt that you are going to be able to instantly kill something before a fight starts unless you're overleveled or are using a Source Point with Mortal Blow. Perhaps maybe a low HP enemy in the back. In that case, it's likely that the enemy was designed to have low HP, and even if your Rogue gets them, you are now starting out at a disadvantage because you're low in the turn order and in the enemy backlines, where there will be many more angry enemies.

I completely agree with nearly all of the OP's assesments of the problems with Dagger users.
Backstab talent should be free (and more rewarding), Blackjacks would add nice flexibility, and Guerilla is utilized better by Str weapons.



#4 really confuses me. Cloak and Dagger is virtually identical to Tactical Retreat. There are only 2 differences. Cloak and Dagger can be used without breaking stealth, and Tactical Retreat adds a 1-turn haste buff to the user.
Range is the same, AP cost is the same, memory cost is the same. They're Huntsman/Scoundrel, respectively, but they are essentially the same ability.
The in-game skillbook reads "Teleport without breaking Sneaking", and this is the only behavior I noticed. Does it also do a smoke cloud in some cases?



There is another important/common scenario where using Guerilla helps not listed here.
I'll explain it with an example.

Let's say I have 6 AP pooled, and 2 abilities available, Crippling Blow and Sawtooth Knife.
Without Guerilla, I'd use Crippling Blow, Sawtooth Knife, and 1 basic attack (weak). 2AP+2AP+2AP
With Guerilla I can Guerilla+Crippling Blow and Guerilla+ Sawtooth Knife. 1+2AP and 1+2AP.

I was able to avoid using a much weaker regular attack and use all of my AP towards my higher scaling and/or AoE abilities.
Every 1 AP going towards a 2 AP skill is 1 more AP you don't spend doing your weakest thing, basic attacks.

If basic hits for 100 damage, Crippling hits 2 targets for 100 each, and Sawtooth hits for 120, the numbers would work out as follows:
Without Guerilla: 2*100+120+100 = 420 damage
With Guerilla: 1.5*(2*100+120)= 480 damage

Do you see what I'm saying?



I found Guerilla to be useful enough to warrant taking (after better talents), just not when using Daggers. This stands to highlight the OP's original point.
With a Bow user it's easy to Snipe off enemies, and it's easy to Guerilla up to buff every ability when one is far away. Guerilla is particularly important in this case, as 1-shotting an enemy often will not trigger a fight and finishing an enemy off entirely (instead of mostly) means they don't even get their 1st turn.
With a 2-handed weapon the added initial damage often let me 1-shot groups of enemies with Crippling Blow, although, I haven't played this style since the Crippling Blow nerf.