Rogue is actually pretty insanely OP as a Hit-and-Run depending on how you use it and play to its strength (stealth and sneak attacks). Dare I say, its actually pretty broken (in Rogue's favor).
I'm running a solo / no companion pure Rogue (no multiclass) playthrough and cheesing almost every fight while taking very little damage. I'm pretty late into Act 3 (defeated Thorm and Orin). I've noticed the fights actually get harder for Rogue in a party than when its doing its thing on its own/split from everyone else (I picked up Shadowheart, Karlach, and Halsin, but they mostly stay at camp). Which seems accurate for a Rogue class.
The only fight where I got absolutely hardstop blasted was the Portal fight where the Shadow-Cursed enemies zerg you, since that is one quest you absolutely cannot just sneak attack the enemies before dialogue, but otherwise Rogue is incredibly strong flying solo.
The trick for me is to spec into the Thief class for an extra bonus action, equip gear that gives you Momentum after bonus actions like Dash and increased overall movement distance (which you can get early into the game in Blighted Village and the Goblin Camp respectively), Misty Step and invisibility for pinch situations, and being careful where and when you Hide. You'll also want the Mobile Feat which again, increases your travel distance per turn/Dash and makes it so difficult terrain doesn't cut your movement capabilities in half whenever you use Dash. Tough is a pretty good Feat to have as well since you have more HP to work with.
In particular with Hide, you never want to use it in close proximity to entities and then move away, forcing them to "search" for you. Its actually better to sneak on an enemy, wait a turn, hit them, dash to a far distance away and then Hide, since the game's AI is pretty bad at responding to stealth outside a certain distance. I find sneak attack Bow is a lot better for this because it does high damage while only using an Action turn, instead of an Action and Bonus Action. When the Rogue is the only fighter on your side of combat, it essentially tricks the enemy into skipping a turn, except for things like heal and buff spells, since the AI can't find you. If you're dealing with purely melee enemies (no ranged), having the increased movement and Momentum buffs will also let you snipe down a lot of enemies without having to rely on Hide by keeping just out of range each turn and having them waste their own actions trying to Dash you down.
Its also a good idea to unlock all the illithid powers as you collect tadpoles. In particular, Luck of the Far Realms is great because it can turn regular attacks into critical hits, and Cull The Weak is an absolute must-have since you can basically auto-kill almost any enemy in the game once their HP is brought lower than the number of tadpoles you've consumed (16 HP without the half-Illithid powers, 27 with all of them). A lot of the time, Cull The Weak + Surprise Attack or any AOE like Repulsor will insta-kill a lot of enemies.
High places that are only reachable by Fly or ladders are also great for Rogue. Climb up and destroy the ladders, and 99% of enemies can't make actions against you.
There's only a few fights where this doesn't really work, like the very last boss fight in Act 2 with its universal AOE attacks rendering Hide basically useless, or one of the Act 3 bosses that has a permanent Haste buff. For those situations, its good to pack some of the more rare/powerful scrolls like Globe of Invulnerability, Chain Lightning, and Disintegrate. Also explosives like Smokepowder Bombs. Lots and lots of Smokepowder Bombs.
As a last tip, its not a bad idea to "reset" a lot of fights after taking down a few enemies so you can get in multiple Surprise rounds. Or at least make the fight easier once you've eliminated the trash mobs/extras to focus-DPS the boss down. In fact, there are a ton of times where I've cleared entire rooms of enemies by sniping one or two down, hiding, repositioning, and sniping again without even triggering a fight.
Last edited by Cawckiest King; 06/09/23 06:51 AM.
