Rogues are masters of a precision strike from the shadows. I mean that wonderful complete pushdown of DS is just awesome on a hunt. However, it does get completely stymied by a critter with ramped up spells. I don't remember exactly when, but eventually you have to start skipping certain creatures because you just can't touch them. Even taking a shot at them to see how many spells they've stacked on is dangerous because the retaliatory cast can be deadly.

I'd love to see a combat maneuver that would allow a rogue to bypass say 20% of DS from spells on an attack/ambush. It could be a skill you'd have to activate on each attack or a new martial stance that is active all the time, but takes away the use of other stances.

<Bandits had this for a brief period after release, but CMan purekill was scrapped in favor of the dispel crystals they throw.>

I'm not sure what the reasons were for scrapping CMan Purekill, but I can see dispel crystals being better for bandits. It gives a chance for a player to bring their defenses back up after a hit. There's no reason to restrict this ability for a player though.

<You can with blue crystals, or if you use UAC. (and if you use UAC then 1209 has a purekill flare as well as always having a good chance to hit walled turtles>

While there are plenty of magical means of doing things in Gemstone, it's good to have mundane abilities like combat maneuvers too. Mechanically I'd recommend e-wave to anyone who wanted to knock a target down, but sweep and kneebash fit a rogue much better.

Spell Thieve looks pretty weak to me so I've never tried it. You need a special type of weapon, so I assume you have to swing at something for it to work. Do you have to hit that something as well? If so, it kind of defeats the purpose. Additionally, even with 5 ranks, you can only take down one spell every thirty seconds in the best case scenario. Unless it's a really high DS one that'll let you get in a killing blow, the spell can easily be replaced by the time you could drop another. Now say you get to drop maybe four spells from a highly spell tanked critter and can kill it. It took you over two minutes to kill one while vanishing as well so it doesn't cast at you. That's a lot of time and stamina.

If it rocks, let me know and I'd love to try it, but it just sounds awful to me.

I used to use kneebash all the time against seekers. It was nice to get them on the ground for a DS drop before an ambush. They often had enough spells on that I couldn't leg them. It was a nice skill at the time.

It took awhile after that, but the next spell tanked critters I ran into just weren't really affected by it. They would just get up by the time I was out of roundtime and in the shadows.

Rogues need a combat maneuver to combat these higher level mages as the others in our arsenal just don't cut it.

>Rogues need a combat maneuver to combat these higher level mages as the others in our arsenal just don't cut it.

Which in particular? The only high level casters that I couldn't ambush effectively were non-corp and its because they were non-corp. Warlock, squish. Vaespilon, squish. (I normally stayed away from Plane 5, but because of the non-corp souls rather than the vaesps) Soul - run away. Cerebralite - squish. Crusader - run away. I can't make effective use of any manoever to disable any of them, but I'd need something against non-corp rather than magic to be able to take on those I can't already.

When they don't squish first time, Vanish. (its the difficulty in vanishing and staying hidden in front of non-corp undead that is the deal breaker for me hunting them, or smite, vanish, squish would work)

I found cut throat effective against fire mages for ceasing their casts.


- Guards haul off the stupid corpse. -

>Fire mages used to mess me up.

I never tried those, I was still fighting in the open with fu (when fu was fu and could take on non corp) at that level.

>The Labyrinth and Bowels had casters that were easy to hit with an ambush.

I couldn't prone Illoke (except at something like 150 stamina per critter due to all the repeat attempts needed for sweep to get a success and the intervening vanishes) and so only did heirloom searches in the main bowels and hunted Plane 3.

>I started hunting the Rift on Plane 3, so I don't know how tough a vvrael witch and csetairi are for a rogue, but the vvrael warlock definitely gave me trouble. Very squishy if you can hit them, but I couldn't touch them with wall of force and iffy without.

Witches have 2 non corp friends but I am they are easier than warlocks otherwise. Plane 2 (warlocks and csetairi) was fine for me. I didn't much like 1 with rogue, though I did with warrior and monk, but 2 was the other way round (and they all liked 3).

>If they were that easy, I think you had some pretty good gear.
Just an absence of it. UAC isn't affected much by DS boosters on critters (or AS boosters on characters). I can also squish them through WoF with a weapon, but that is a good weapon on a warrior, which is why I reckon a blue crystal backed weapon should work for a rogue ambush. With ambush UAC maybe 1 in 10 ambushes required vanish if the warlock didn't have Wall and 1 in 5 if it did. It has an effect, but not a big one.

>The cerebralites have some decent padding, but are easy to connect with. The fetish masters have a really high DS when their spells are up. I haven't tried liches yet, but it sure sounds like it'd be worse.

I haven't hunted the Scatter, but I haven't had trouble hiding till I got out of it either. I'm waiting on getting to 2x ambush in my post cap training before trying that. Having multiple weapon styles pre cap isn't really on, but if you are having trouble from high DS critters post cap, you should try brawl. Masters would be fine, but UAC does have pretty strong level vs. level effects on gaining position so I am not sure whether uphunting to lich level would work effectively or not.

I loved hunting fire mages, but if they cast at me, they had a decent chance to hit. Combined that with taking one wound minimum when killing them, I went through a lot of herbs.

<UAC isn't affected much by DS boosters on critters (or AS boosters on characters)>

Well, UAC would be a viable option to make things easy against spell tanked critters then. Sounds like it would fall apart in the Scatter or big invasions though with level difference. Besides, UAC isn't for me. The thought of going to a fight barehanded just seems silly to me.

<Occasionally I'll come across one that has 'too many' spells on and I'll kick off CMAN surge / rub a blue crystal>

I've actually gotten rid of Surge by now since my STR is maxed anyway. I generally rub a blue crystal for adv guild dangerous creature tasks, but wouldn't want to for every attack against a mage. Blue crystals are definitely mechanically viable and would still be superior to what I'm suggesting though.

I want a rogue-ish solution that will help bypass the defenses of a spell tanked critter. I think Spell Thieve was probably an attempt at that, but it from where I stand, it fails. A chance to steal a spell is fun, but it doesn't do enough to help kill a critter.