"My father was a surface elf,
My mother lived 'neath the wave.
My father 'twas a' sinking fast,
My mother, she did save.

The love that grew was more than self,
Though many a storm 'twould brave.
They lived and danced and then, at last,
Gave birth to a rhyming knave."

- Brenna Wavekin, the Dancing Rogue

"It is important to note that this guide was first published in Module 4...in 2007. I've tried to keep up with the various changes, some subtle, some not, since it first came out but this has become progressively more difficult. Look at the ideas presented and, if they seem sound, use them. Don't grab every bit of advice blindly. Thanks."
- Brenna Wavekin, the Dancing Rogue

For the Complete Edition, please click here!

Contents 1 Notes From A Dancing Rogue 1.1 Preface 1.2 Audience 1.3 Philosophy 1.4 The Kinds of Rogues 1.4.1 The Finesse Rogue 1.4.2 The Strong Rogue 1.4.3 The Smart Rogue 1.4.4 The Ranged Rogue 1.4.5 The Multiclassed Rogue 1.5 Key Design Decisions 1.5.1 “How will I do my damage?” 1.5.1.1 Overdamage and the Damage Curve 1.5.1.2 And Exceptions 1.5.1.2.1 Monster Effects 1.5.1.2.2 Character Effects 1.5.1.2.3 Quest Effects 1.5.1.3 Some Specific Damage Recommendations 1.5.1.4 Tactics 1.5.1.5 The Barbarian Test 1.5.2 “How will I stay alive?” 1.5.2.1 Saving Throws 1.5.2.2 Armor Class 1.5.2.3 Hit Points 1.5.2.4 Healing 1.5.3 “How will I handle traps/locks?” 1.5.4 “What skills do I want to max, and why?” 1.5.4.1 Use Magical Devices 1.5.4.1.1 Projections of UMD levels (assuming 16 rogue levels and no Raid gear): 1.5.4.1.2 Projections of UMD levels (assuming 16 rogue levels and Raid gear): 1.5.4.2 Jump 1.5.4.3 Hide and Move Silently 1.5.4.4 Diplomacy 1.5.4.5 Bluff 1.5.4.6 Balance 1.5.4.7 Tumble 1.5.4.8 Haggle 1.5.5 “What feats do I want, and why?” 1.5.5.1 Two Weapon Fighting - Pros and Cons 1.5.5.2 Precision 1.5.5.3 Improved Critical 1.5.5.4 The Spring Attack Line 1.5.5.5 Combat Expertise and Company 1.5.5.6 Power Attack 1.5.5.7 Skill Focus/Skill Feats 1.5.5.8 Force of Personality 1.5.5.9 Toughness 1.5.5.10 Ranged Feats 1.6 Choice Gear 1.6.1 General 1.6.2 Weapons 1.6.3 Armor 1.6.4 Utility 1.7 Stealth 1.7.1 Scout 1.7.2 Assassin 1.7.3 Master Thief (aka ‘The Stealth Picture’) 1.7.4 Where to Practice Stealth

Notes From A Dancing Rogue

Preface

This is a guide to my personal philosophies to playing a rogue. As such, it will never be complete; I’ve been playing Brenna since release, and I’m still finding out new and interesting things to do with the class. She and I have evolved over time from casual to power gamer and back again more than once and there are still many, many things I haven’t found the time to experiment with or observe. This is what we know now, but who knows what the future holds?

There are many, many ways to build and play a rogue, and I cannot pretend to be an expert in all of them; I’m adding my notes on the play styles/tricks I know, and hoping that those with more detailed experience in particular play styles chime in on this thread. These are Brenna’s first hand experiences and my observations of other (sometimes better, sometimes not) rogue players.

The Rogue is a very interesting class: jack of all trades, masters of some.

“The full quote is, 'Jack of all Trades, Master of None, oft times better than a Master of One'. Picking just one task in which to excel is self-limiting." – Brenna Wavekin

The class itself screams versatility; that very versatility makes them very demanding, yet rewarding to play. I’ve run Brenna for rather a while now, respec’ing her feats several times since that option became available, and trying a good cross section of available enhancements, both before and after Academy Training came out.

I like to think I’ve got a good feel for the options available to the class but, as with everything, opinions vary.

“I can’t see being a casual rogue; I started as such, but the class is too demanding and does not lend itself well to the casual player.” – Brenna Wavekin

Audience

In this posting, I’m writing primarily for those players with a rogue icon in front of their names, and with a more than passing familiarity with Dungeons and Dragons Online. This is not a guide for the new player, though picking a build from the Rogue’s forums and then using this guide to fine tune build, gear, and strategy will (I hope) be helpful.

The original comment (block quoted below) was true back in the day, but less true now.  People are more inclined to argue about "what kind of rogue?" or "how many rogues?" rather than "why a rogue?"; it pleases me to see that change, as I'm sure it pleases other rogue fans.  

We rogue players rarely have the opportunity to see others of our class in action; groups tend to have a dislike for the class, regarding them as a necessary evil, so we usually operate without observing our own kind, leaving us without that necessary feedback that lets us know how we stack up against others of the class, borrow tricks, and improve. We all tend to regard ourselves as the best in the class, likely because we rarely get to see each other in action; it is on that note that I hope my hubris in attempting to post a general guide on the most complex, interesting, and misunderstood class in the game is forgiven.

"We still tend to be heavy on the ego, though, as rogue players.  Some things never change. ;)" - Brenna Wavekin

Not everyone agrees even on core class attributes; you will find some fairly heated debates between the writers of and commenters on the various guides, threads, blogs ... pretty much every information source out there.  

In short, I recommend reading to understand how things work (and where they don't) rather than adopting any particular build or strategy blindly. 

Presented in no particular order:

• Basic, universal rogue build advice by Draccus
• Unofficial Strength Based Pure Rogue Guide by Ookami007
• Assassins Guide by nerdychaz
• Hordo's How-To #3: A Brief Refresher Course on Rogue Skills by Hordo
• Big F'n Stick Build by The_Phenx
• Sockpuppet: little blue ball of death by KingOfCheese
• Pretty much anything from the keyboard of karl_k0ch

The game changes very quickly, and much advice depends on the gear you have available, your level range, and your goals.  Advice on self-sufficiency, for instance, means nothing if you're always in a static group.  Discussions on pugging mid-level content are generally irrelevant if you're only running end-game raids. And then there's TR chains, specific raid advice, gear-set combinations ... ad nauseum.

Take everything with a healthy helping of salt, try to understand the authors' points, where they apply and where they don't.

And, of course, the first essential work on the subject of rogue skills:

• Is my <insert rogue skill> high enough? by cforce
• Is my <insert rogue skill> high enough? *New* by Impaqt
  
• Read the Compendium entry.

Philosophy

As a rogue, my job is not to locate and disable traps. As a rogue, my job is to get the party through a quest as efficiently as possible. Most of the time, this means killing monsters, so having a way to kill whatever monsters I’m questing against is paramount. If there are traps and locks in the quest, I’m expected to be able to handle them, as these are core talents of the class, but if the party chooses to run through or ignore them, then I do the same. If I keep up my magical devices training, I can serve as an emergency healer, a rezzer, and a general utility gadget mage. Finally, because of the pool of skills at my disposal, I present the group with a variety of tactical options that may allow them to bypass combat altogether.

“What the author means, is, a rogue kills monsters, bypasses defenses, uses wands/scrolls, and other stuff….pretty much in that order.” – Brenna Wavekin

The Kinds of Rogues

First, let’s talk about the general types of rogue’s out there. This is by no means a selection of builds, just a thumbnail sketch of characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses. Peak numbers are quite important in DDO, as much of the game is either 'hit' or 'miss', 'disable' or 'fail disable', 'unlock' or 'fail to unlock'...so read between the lines and plan accordingly. However, I'm a big believer that rogues, more than any other class except perhaps monks, can be very easily min/maxed to death...drop stats to their racial min with caution, know what you're losing and what you seek to gain by doing so.

“Players often get wrapped up in the strength vs dexterity/Finesse debate. Strength-based gives you better damage, saves you a feat, makes you less gear dependent in some ways, more gear dependent in others, and lets you access some very nice weapons. Dexterity/Finesse-based saves you points for other stats, applies to more skills that strength, pumps your reflex save, and gets you a better AC...but it will cost you a precious feat to do so. In the endgame, it's the player and the gear you choose to seek out that will make or break your rogue.” – Brenna Wavekin

"Since about Module 6 or so, Turbine has, deliberately or no, methodically dismantled reasons to take anything except str + con on a capped melee. There are still reasons to go finesse, but it isn't nearly as good as it was even one mod ago, at least at the cap and when geared. Make or break is still the player and gear, tho." - Brenna Wavekin

It becomes more and more difficult to justify going Finesse as the updates progress.  Oh, there's been some limited utility added by the devs in the form of dex or int for damage weapon types, but fundamentally the advantages of being dex based ... and spending a feat for it ... simply break down as you gain gear.  This isn't a "finesse suxxorz!" comment - I know some finesse rogues that rock - just that, end-game and geared, on a pure rogue, I don't see the feat cost balancing out against the stat savings or to-hit/AC gain.  I leveled Brenna (and TR'd twice) as Finesse; works fine until you hit the teens then any advantages start dropping off as you start gearing up.

The Finesse Rogue

Your Finesse rogue is a staple of fiction and film: high dexterity, good intelligence, and (often) good charisma. This is the Gray Mouser. Dex starting at 16+, level ups go here. Weapon finesse for melee, often with two weapon fighting, this rogue takes some time to develop for combat, as the damage in the build comes from sneak attack levels rather than stats. Your attack bonus, however, is very dependent on your dexterity, and your stat bonuses with level go into your dex.  A common mistake is to dumpstat strength; don't do that.  You'll want at least a 13+ strength to take (or have the option to take) Power Attack, for instance, and you'll want to hit ~20+ endgame strength for extra damage and carrying capacity.

The Strong Rogue

This rogue sacrifices a little dex, and possibly charisma, and puts it into strength and/or con. This is Fafhrd. Starting with 16+ strength, dex at 15+, this rogue levels easier than a dex based rogue, as there is plenty of damage at the lower levels before your sneak attack fully develops and you can use the feat a dex based rogue puts into weapon finesse for something else. Your reflex saves are a little lower, and your open locks, stealth, and balance skills will suffer a little. You'll want to make sure to hit a 17 dex (with a tome, probably) to get the two weapon fighting feats, unless you're going a different route.

The Smart Rogue

This rogue sacrifices some dex and strength for brains. This is McGyver. Starting with a 16+ int, 14+ dex or str (and level ups go into either dex or str.), this rogue isn’t the best combatant coming out of the gate, and will evolve into a damage dealer slower than either the Finesse or Strong varieties since you’ll need both class levels, feats, and enhancements into combat related rather than trap/lock/utility related areas to compensate for the lower attack bonus. You have many, many skill points, and can max out many different areas. In non-trap related skills, your peaks will be lower, but you’ll have a lot of breadth.

"Warning! Warning! With the introduction of Epics, to hit matters a whole lot at the cap. Be very careful with a Smart rogue, and I mean very careful that you don't take so much intelligence that you end up crippling your to hit stat. A guildie of mine seems to have hit a good balance, though he's using epic weapons mostly and had to forgo Power Attack." - Brenna Wavekin

The Ranged Rogue

This is a sub-type of the other three rogues above, which I consider to be melee types. Ranged combat as a specialty can work, but only if you spend feats for it; the rate of fire in DDOs ranged attacks is inferior to that of melee, but can be compensated for through feats, enhancements, and multiclassing. While I strongly recommend every rogue carry some kind of ranged weapon, take a look for specific build guides before attempting to go purely or even primarily ranged.

The Multiclassed Rogue

Personally, I recommend multiclassing a rogue as you’d multiclass a caster: with caution. A single level of just about anything can give you huge benefits; more than that and you start to cut into special abilities, enhancements, and sneak attack damage. Don’t get me wrong, a couple levels of fighter or ranger can be very nice for the feats and attack bonus; just saying I’ve done exactly that before, and while it’s effective I’ve found staying close to full rogue is very, very nice.

There are plenty of builds out there that do more than splash a level in another class, and they’re good builds. However, they don’t do it for *just* one characteristic, they do it after a careful analysis of the build as a whole, and carefully map the level progression to get just the right feats and abilities at just the right times. Typically, they are designed to target the current version of the game (current gear, quests, and level cap). I wouldn’t do this haphazardly, however, or on a whim; plan your build thoroughly if you plan on adding more than a splash.

The game has changed and continues to change; the more fine tuning you do with your class selections, the more risk you incur that a future change will have a negative impact.

Key Design Decisions

These decisions will mark your path through the levels of the class, and so deserve to be repeated.

• “How will I do my damage?”
• “How will I stay alive?”
• “How will I handle traps/locks?”
• “What skills do I want to max, and why?”
• “What feats do I really want, and why?”

“How will I do my damage?”

DDO is a damage game. There are several quests in which you can bypass fights, but by and large a rogue that can’t rank in the damage department is not desired in groups, and will not push quests forward. Damage per second (dps) is a function of number of hits per weapon cycle over time, which in turn is a function of your to-hit, your number of attacks, and how often you get agro.

“Uh, oh, here comes the math…well, geometry. Whatever.” – Brenna Wavekin

Overdamage and the Damage Curve

Before we get into specifics, there are two concepts that are vital for a rogue to understand; I call them Overdamage and the Damage Curve, both of which are related to sneak attack damage.

Overdamage is the amount of damage you’re doing to the monster above that of other individual members of party. Rogue’s only get their sneak attack bonus when they don’t have the monster’s agro…there are significant exceptions to this rule, and important ones to understand, but let's start here.

So, if you do too much damage in proportion to the other party members attacking the same monster, you get agro, and lose your sneak attack damage.  This cycle results in what I refer to as the Damage Curve.

By way of illustration, think of a series of saw teeth or peaks and valleys; rogue’s add their sneak attack damage until they do enough to get agro at the peak, then their damage drops into a valley, where they only get their base damage. When they shed agro, they go back to doing peak damage again, do enough to get agro again, and so on. That’s the Damage Curve. The height of the curve is the amount of Overdamage a rogue can do to a monster before getting agro; the bottom of the curve is the amount of damage the rogue can do without sneak attack damage.

Your best damage, over time, is going to be getting into that niche where you are almost, almost just about to grab agro ... then staying there throughout the encounter.  It's more a theoretical state than a practical one because DDO has no agro meters (or even DPS meters), so if you're pushing your damage odds are you're going to get agro pretty often.

Minor Rant: Very few people care about DPS (damage per second, damage per time). Oh, they say they do, but what they really mean is kill count. Keep that in mind; no point in dropping into a valley toward the end of the monster's life, doing the most damage on it overall, but not getting the kill ... better to pace the damage a little and pick up the point as well.

"Quick side note: Sneak Attack (SA) damage is added when a monster that can be crit is not agro'd on the rogue, is helpless (held, stunned, stoned, etc), or is blind in some fashion. This is a common new rogue question, so I thought I'd throw the answer in here." - Brenna Wavekin

And Exceptions

The concepts of Overdamage and the Damage Curve are irrelevant if agro isn't an issue.  

One can break the exceptions down into three categories:

Monster Effects

On a monster that is in some fashion helpless or blind, you get Sneak Attacks.  Note "helpless" is a specific state; Hold Monster, Flesh to Stone, Stunned, Stone Prison, Earth Grabbed ... there are quite a few "helpless" states, just as there are similar states that are not "helpless", such as Dancing, Webbed, Knocked Down.  Not everything can be made helpless.

Blind can be, well, Blind spell, Sleetstorm, Blind off a weapon effect, and the like.  You can add damage infinitely without creating a Damage Curve. Not everything can be blinded.

Also, weapons of Deception (and Improved Deception), and appropriate use of Diplomacy and/or Bluff can create the same situation for the (short) duration of the effect: Overdamage becomes irrelevant, it's just damage. 

Character Effects

The higher you go in level, the more likely you are to have agro reducers (Subtle Backstabber enhancements, items such as Treason or Tharne's Wrath, high Diplomacy and/or using Bluff) just as the tanks you run with become more likely to have agro enhancers (enhancements, PrEs, Incite items).  If your reducers + the tank's inciters are greater than your Overdamage, you'll never be able to grab agro, and thus have no Damage Curve.

Quest Effects

Some monsters have random or semi-random agro.  Some monsters reset agro often.  Some quests are run with tactics that make continuous applied damage irrelevant.  In these quests, more damage is always (generally) better, because the agro either doesn't build up (based on the monster) or because that build-up just doesn't matter (based on the tactics).  If the tactic is have a tank hold the agro while the rest of the party periodically does something else, like cleaning up respawns, the tank is (hopefully) going to maintain a significant enough lead that the Damage Curve doesn't effectively exist.

Some Specific Damage Recommendations

Ok, we’ve hit up the theory, now for some specifics. Having a decent attack bonus must be your first priority when building your rogue for damage. One of the things to keep strongly in mind is the 3/4 basic attack bonus, and it’s comparison to the martial 1-to-1 basic attack bonus. Monsters appear to have had their armor class balanced against the martial BAB, so with a 3/4 BAB a rogue has to keep a careful eye his to-hit, and keep a good handle not only on how often he deals damage, but also how often he misses.

See The Definitive Attack Bonus Thread by Impaqt for all the ways to get your to hit up.

Obviously, if you're hitting everything on a '2', stop adding to hit and start adding more damage.

If you have to choose between hitting more often and more damage per hit, choose to hit more often.

Consider: at level 11, a character with all rogue levels will have a base attack bonus of +8, while one with all levels in a martial class will have a base attack bonus of +11. Toss in a combat stat of perhaps 28 for both (a fairly conservative number), and you end up with the rogue having an attack bonus of +17 against the martial +20. Now equip them. If the martial character is hitting on a 10 or more at +21, the rogue will need a 13…if the fighter needs a 15 to connect against highly armored foes, the rogue will need a 18. It's that last case that's the important one; at the higher ACs, small shifts in attack bonus make a big difference. In the first example, the fighter is first hitting 1 time out of 2 swings, with the rogue hitting roughly 1 in 3; in the second example (a 5 point shift in AC), the fighter has gone from 50% hits to 25% hits...and lost 1/2 of his dps. The rogue went from 33% to 10% with the same change...and lost more than 2/3 of his dps.

"A high attack bonus is what you want. +5 shrimp fork beats a +1 acid burst rapier of pure good if you're hitting on a '2' with the shrimp fork and a '6' with the rapier. One miss with a 80-100 point SA proc + base damage is expensive in terms of total damage per time, and generally not worth the benefit of a couple extra damage dice or the 5 point bonus from Power Attack." - Brenna Wavekin

The general concensus is to shoot for a 50+ to hit bonus in Epics; that may seem like a lot, but if you break it down:
+5 weapon
+12 combat stat (34ish)
+15 BAB
+5 SA item
+4 SA accuracy enhancements
+4 Greater Heroism
+5 Divine Power clickie
 -2 GTWF w/ light weapon in the offhand
+2 Guild Dummy buff
------------------------------------------------------------
+50
That's just by way of example, you can always mix and match a great many other buffs, such as a bard's Inspire Courage and Inspire Greatness, an accuracy item or guild slot, an exceptional bonus, Destruction in some flavor, working the +2 flanking bonus, the +1 bonus for Haste, racial enhancements, etc etc.

Tactics

Last In
Simple enough; let the group’s chosen tank lead the charge and so pick up initial agro. It’s easier to shed agro you never get in the first place, after all. A variation on this theme is to use stealth: if you’re not fast enough to be continually stealthed as the group moves, just turn it off long enough to get to a corner or doorway and then re-stealth so you’re not the first character the monsters see.

In and Out
Again, simple enough; stand just behind or beside the group’s tank, take a step or tumble forward and perform a series of strikes, then tumble or step back. If you’re new to the group, this gives you a chance to cautiously gage how well your tank picks up and holds agro. If you generate a heck of a lot of Overdamage when you go all out, pacing yourself may actually give the party better dps over the course of the quest. 

Sidestep
Never run. Again, *never* run. If you run in a straight line to avoid an agro’d monster, someone is likely to come after you to try and save you; this weakens the main group, and can cause a tough, but doable fight to turn into a route. Instead, tumble behind or jump over the tank(s); the monster chasing your will have to move around and, since he’s chasing you, is not doing damage to the rest of the party. Stay tight (and I do mean *tight*) on your tank, so he doesn’t lose any swings while trying to re-establish agro and go ahead and start on whatever the tank or caster was just fighting…just be prepared to tumble/jump over the tank again if that last monster is still on you.

Knife in the Back
If you flank (are behind, in DDO) the monster, you pick up a +2 circumstance attack bonus for free. Except when other circumstances dictate (e.g. the monster has a stack of friends behind him, who will now decide to return the favor on *you*), go for it any chance you get. This is a great party tactic against enemy casters in particular, since they like to dump area of effect spells on the party. If you’re behind him when you snag his agro, and in so doing get him turned around so whatever area of effect mischief he was about to unleash falls on you alone rather than on the whole party you’ll often end up saving the healers more mana that it costs to fix you up ... this does not necessarily apply if the caster in question is fond of disintegrate, however.

Turtle Up
Regardless of your AC or damage reduction, and whether or not you have a shield equipped, you can take considerably more hits if you’re blocking than if you’re standing there or swinging. If things look dicey and you can’t move (for instance, you’re holding the door against a horde of monsters who want to eat your healers and casters for lunch), turtle up and block. You’ll last longer than you would otherwise, you’ll pull less agro while the casters make stuff dead, and you’ll serve the tactical purpose (if not your kill count) much better than over agro’ing, dying, and causing the shield wall to fail.

The Barbarian Test

Simply put, rogues are dps. There are only two objective measures of relative dps in DDO right now: Kill Count and Agro Generation. Everything else is loaded with subjectivity; you want objective measurement, so you can't fool yourself into thinking you're better than you are.

Together, these two measures, Kill Count and Agro Generation, make up The Barbarian Test, which is how you stack up against your party's barbarian, who is generally accepted as the dps melee class in DDO.

If your kill count is in the range of your barbarian (and you're not just picking off things at the very end, but putting in an honest fight), you're golden. Yes, kill count rarely tells the whole story, but if you can get that you need test no further. The whole party can see what you're doing, and appreciate it; you're obviously doing something for the group besides traps and locks.

If you *don't* have the kill count, you need to periodically test Agro Generation on your build to see if your dps is high enough. Again, simple enough: can you pull agro off the Barbarian. If you can, congratz! You're riding the damage curve and putting out at least as much dps as the Barbarian, regardless of the end kill count. If you *can't* pull agro off the Barbarian, do some analysis. Are you missing a lot? Maybe it's time to work in a weapon of Backstabbing into your collection, slip in some Sneak Attack Accuracy Enhancements. Not enough damage per hit? Maybe swap some Sneak Attack Training Enhancements into your build. Not enough hits fast enough? Work in Haste potions to your attack chain, or take a look at the Speed Boost Enhancements.

If playing a rogue for dps were easy, this guide would never have been written. Continually test yourself in this area and, where necessary, make adjustments. That's the only way to get good at this class.

“How will I stay alive?”

A smart rogue learns not to depend on someone else for healing and defense, at least not all the time. Rogue’s get an undeserved reputation for draining the healer’s mana because of their (generally) few hit points compared to the martial classes; few hit points means the a hit on the rogue moves the hit point bar much further than the same hit on the barbarian, and, more importantly, distracts the healer from keeping the tank and/or casters up. Don’t be this rogue.

I try to follow the old "Saves > AC > HP" rule of thumb; get some saves, get some AC, and have some HP...use Shield/Blur/Displacement to augment (not necessarily replace) your AC, and some Stoneskin/other DR/self-Healing to augment your HPs.

Never a enough slots for everything, of course.

“Rogues with a reputation for taking care of themselves and their party get groups; those that do not, do not.” – Brenna Wavekin

Saving Throws

Rogues have mediocre fort/will saves, making resistance items of all kinds particularly handy for the class. Reflex saves are usually enough to do the job, but never forget that Uncanny Dodge doesn’t just boost your AC, it boosts your reflex saves as well; get in the habit of kicking it on for short boosts before you do something that looks particularly dangerous (doing Crucible at lvl 10ish? Hit your Uncanny Dodge just before you go into the underwater portion).

Evasion and, even more so, Improved Evasion let you skip though traps, AoE spells, and dangerous areas that kill other classes. Improved Evasion comes highly recommended; anyone can roll a '1'.

Armor Class

Armor class is good, if you can get enough of it. In the lower levels, Uncanny Dodge and a shield can go a long way, even for a dedicated two weapon fighter. When armor class isn’t enough, look at the other options. Rogue’s with a decent UMD can run blur, displacement, and stoneskin from scrolls, for instance. And, incidentally, I strongly recommend the Shield spell on a wand, scroll, or clickie for all those other twf rogues out there. You want to be able to hit a standing AC in the mid thirties as a minimum at level 12 if you’re going for AC, and probably won’t get a lot out of it until you can hit the 40s. At level 16, if you want AC to make a difference, you’ll want a standing AC in the low 40s.

”These standing AC recommendations are based on having Uncanny Dodge available; get these standing, then spam UD for an extra +6 AC that stacks with everything.” – Brenna Wavekin

Dex based rogues have an edge here, if they switch from regular armor to robes and armor items at the appropriate levels. Please see The Definitive AC Bonus Thread by Taerdra.

“Can’t stand robes, myself, though I’ve got the dex to use them. The white dragonscale robes are tolerable, as are a couple of the outfits. I always carry a shield, though…better to have it, and not need it, than need it and not have it.” – Brenna Wavekin

Hit Points

Hit points are not a defense; they are margin for error.  

I’d never recommend using con as a dump stat on a rogue, simply because the class has so few hit points to start with, and can potentially pull so much damage to itself….and a single hit point per level means a lot more to you than to a fighter. You can’t go wrong by putting Toughness into your build, then spending some AP for the racial toughness enhancements...pretty much a must.

There are certainly other ways to approach HP issues: spell absorption, fireshield, DR from items or Stoneskin wands, and lifeshield in various combinations, for instance, can do the trick surprisingly well ... but in absence of a plan, keep the hit points up.

The general concensus is target 400+ standing HP at the cap as a minimum.  

For epics, you really want to try to get a little higher than that, so you can survive a failure against at least one 420+ disintegrate from an epic beholder/kobold shaman/gnoll caster, and so you can hit a 500+ once you toss all your buffs on for raids such as eVoN 6 and eDQ, where there's little room to maneuver and generally no good placement to avoid damage.  

Healing

If nothing else, you’ll want potions of lesser restoration, remove fear, remove curse, and remove blindness. I’d recommend neutralize poison, and remove disease as well, particularly if you're a regular Shroud runner. Self sufficiency is key; you tend to run closer to the bone than the martial classes, and can’t afford to be running at anything other than peak. Maybe that barbarian over there can mix it up with the monsters with a big curse blossom or nasty green poison icon over his head; you can’t. 

“I use potions and scrolls more than wands for healing these days. Stack of 100 heal scrolls takes the same inventory space as a wand, and it's a whole lot quicker to quaff (or throw) a potion than it is to equip a wand, use it, then reequip weapons.” – Brenna Wavekin A little healing amp somewhere or a point into scroll/wand enhancements can go a long way.

“How will I handle traps/locks?”

I recommend a 14 int as a minimum on a rogue...this number, however, is not based on trap skills, it is based on skillpoints overall. Brenna started somewhat gimpy…

“Hey!!!” – Brenna Wavekin

…at a 12 int. If you have a plan, it is quite doable to run a rogue with int as a dump stat and do all but two or three traps in the game without error.

”In the absence of such a plan, keep your int up. *wink*” - Brenna Wavekin

Max out your Spot, Search, and Disable Device, and put a fair number of points into Open Lock. If dex is decent, you can afford to skimp on your Open Locks a little…I’d still recommend keeping it up, though. The reasoning here: you’ll get multiple tries on locks, not necessarily on traps, so you can afford to not quite max this one out. Be prepared, though, to hunt for best spec OL gear.

As you level, I’d recommend taking at least the level II Search/Disable device Enhancements as they become available, and pick up Skill Boost and/or Way of the Mechanic. The rationale here is, equivalent quest levels ramp higher for traps than overall quest level would indicate on hard/elite...best guestimate +2 for hard, +4 or more on elite, actual change varying from quest to quest...and when you’re leveling you’re likely to see a wide variety of quests, quest difficulties, and quest level ranges (e.g. running lvl 10 elite quests when you’re lvl 8…so you’re working with lvl 14ish equivalent traps...so you'd better come heavy if you expect to do them).

Once you hit the gear plateau around 13-16ish, you can tweak things down a bit (given that you've acquired the gear, of course!)...play around with it depending on your exact build and gear. 

Some rogues de-emphasis Spot; I do not. A high 30s/low 40s at level 16 is very handy for spotting hidden monsters and detecting the presence of secret doors. Even in quests that the party is very familiar with, spot will flag an undetected trap *and* flag an undetected trap *box*, so in the case of a large, complicated trap with a box midway through or on the opposite side, Spot will give you a good indicator of where to start your Search. This can save you a lot of pain trying to remember where the box is to start your search.

Spot is also essential for detecting hidden monsters; combined with Stealth, you can see them well before they see you, allowing you to both alert the party to them and make sure you aren’t the first thing they agro on (see Tactics).

"Traps and locks are largely an exercise in accounting; once you know you have enough to handle the quests you want, the bloom is off the rose, and all that's left are the numbers. Numbers are not exciting. Combat is." - Brenna Wavekin

“What skills do I want to max, and why?”

I’m presenting the non trap/lock skills in no particular order. I recommend putting at least some ranks into all of these; everything else is, in my opinion, situational. 

"I strongly recommend maxing out Spot/Search/Disable/UMD/Bluff(and/or Diplomacy), toss some points into Open Lock and Balance, then Jump, Tumble, Hide, Move Silently, and Bluff to your personal taste." - Brenna Wavekin

Use Magical Devices

UMD is probably the single most useful skill on a rogue; the trapster skills are still essential, but at the high levels you will likely find yourself using a wand or reading a scroll far more often than you disarm a trap or unlock a door. Max this skill, even if you don’t have a great charisma.

UMD is not just wand or heal scroll whipping. Consider some of the tactical options of:

• Shield Wand DC 20
• Blur Scroll DC 24
• Stat Wand DC 24
• False Life Wand DC 24
• Resist Energy (10 pt) DC 24
• Web Wand (for low levels) DC 24
• Displacement Scroll DC 28
• Stoneskin Scroll DC 32
• Enervation Scroll DC 32
• Waves of Exhaustion Scroll DC 44

• Wand of Fireball DC 28 (open Sesame!)

• Cure Light Wand DC 22
• Cure Mod Wand DC 24
• Cure Serious Wand DC 28
• Cure Critical Wand DC 32

• Cure Blindness Wand DC 28
• Cure Disease Wand DC 28
• Remove Curse Wand DC 28
• Neutralize Poison Wand DC 32

• Restoration Scroll DC 32
• Raise Dead Scroll DC 36
• Heal Scroll DC 40
• Resurrection DC 44

• Invisibility Scroll DC 24
• Fire Shield Scroll DC 32
• Shadow Walk Scroll DC 40
• Teleport Scroll DC 36
• Greater Teleport Scroll DC 44

"And keep in mind, this is just what you can buy off the vendor, not what you can get in chests or off the auction house. Shield wands greater than lvl 1, Stoneskin greater than level 7, and Resist Elements wands of level 11 are in fair demand, for obvious reasons." - Brenna Wavekin

Projections of UMD levels (assuming 16 rogue levels and no Raid gear):

• 19 Ranks
• 3 Feat, SF: UMD
• 1 Voice of the Master (Delere's Tomb end reward)
• 3 Golden Cartouche (Delere's Tomb end reward)
• 4 Greater Heroism
• 3 +6 Charisma item
• 1 Class Feat: Skill Mastery

• Totals:
  • 34 UMD ...
  • 8 Cha -> 33 UMD (can use Rogue Skill Boost to hit 38 for short periods)
  • 16 Cha -> 37 UMD (can use Rogue Skill Boost to hit 42 for short periods)

Projections of UMD levels (assuming 16 rogue levels and Raid gear):

• 19 Ranks
• 3 Feat, SF: UMD
• 2 Head of Good Fortune (Reaver's Fate raid item)
• 5 7 Fingered Gloves (Titan Awakes raid item)
• 4 Greater Heroism
• 3 +6 Charisma item
• 1 Class Feat: Skill Mastery

• Totals:
  • 37 UMD ...
  • 8 Cha -> 36 UMD (can use Rogue Skill Boost to hit 41 for short periods)
  • 16 Cha -> 40 UMD (can use Rogue Skill Boost to hit 45 for short periods)

Jump

You’ll be forever jumping up on things (ledges and such) and over things (monsters, generally), and a high Jump score is a wonderful thing to have in pretty much any combat you get into, and most quests. The section I have on jump here is pretty short, but its way up there in terms of combat skills.

Note that Jump caps at 40; spells, including clickies, are available to give you 30 point jumps pretty readily. So ... once you're toward higher end of the game you can pretty much cap you Jump skill without putting a single rank in it, and a healthy majority of rogues don't.  I like Jump at all levels of the game, but Brenna has the skill points to max it out.

Hide and Move Silently

These skills don’t have to be maxed to give you some good value, if you’ve got good items and/or dex, but I always recommend putting at least a few points into them. Even if you have no intent to stealth quests, or bypass large numbers of monsters (and you can), the ability to simply pop quickly into stealth and ensure *you* see *them* before *they* see *you* is huge. Granted, parties tend to be impatient, and every rogue has clicked their tongue at players who just step around a corner and says "Hey, we got *argh!* incoming!". Still, it’s so useful to be able to step around the corner, look, list what's there, and step back that a few points in these skills are quite in order. Keep them fairly even, practice them until they become second nature, and they will serve you well. See the section on Stealth.

Hotkey it, learn it, love it ... even if you've no intention of putting a single skill point in it.

Diplomacy

Diplomacy dumps your agro for a couple seconds, and will also reduce total acquired agro when used, by a % based on the skill level. 

This AoE agro reduction skill works on beings with some level of intelligence (i.e. It doesn’t work on animals, constructs other than warforged, etc). The area is roughly the equivalent to that of a Bless spell, so it’s not going to help you drop that archer agro unless you get close. It's an instant skill, but since Mod 9ish there's been a random delay of 0 to 2 seconds on the effect ... this apparently was changed to let the mob finish it's current attack chain when agro shifts instead of being stuck between two rogues and never getting an attack off, the old "agro yo-yo".

You must have somewhere for the agro to go for it to work, so it won't work solo or if other targets are outside the monster's agro radius (e.g. if you've got the mob facing away or too far from the rest of the party, it might not work even on success).

Various mobs have varying resistance to diplo, varying widely on quest difficulty, mob type, and mob rank. Divine's of various stripe, for example, and raid bosses in particular can be difficult to diplo in elite quests...even with max diplo, you will probably need an item for some mobs if you want it to be 100% effective.

Diplomacy will break stealth, and has a "soft" animation associated with it.

Diplomacy is also useful in avoiding fights; some quests (e.g. Crucible leaders, Chains of Flame cook) have monsters you can talk to and, if your diplomacy is high enough, avoid combat altogether.

Bluff

Bluff has a range somewhat larger than your ranged sneak attack range (I’m guessing roughly 60ish feet), and makes the target sneak attack eligible if it is successful. It also generally spins the target around, at least for a moment, which can mitigate some damage. If you decided to pick up Improved Feint, then bluff is the skill checked to see what monsters are deceived. As with Diplomacy, bluff can occasionally be used to avoid combat.

Bluff, unlike Diplomacy, won't break stealth so you can use it as a ranged pull, or to set up an Assassinate on an agro'd mob.  Even on a failure, bluff grants a 25% agro reduction for a few seconds, so it can be useful to hotbar for some circumstances. The animation is a "soft" animation, meaning you can do things while it's going on, such as move, attack, wand, etc.  It looks a little weird, but don't let the fact that you just hit bluff stop you from squeezing an extra second or so out of your character.

“Lot of fun things to do with Bluff since they pulled the animation (kinda) and added the agro reducers to it.  Bluff, sneak, assassinate as one motion, for instance; speed bluffing; spam bluff for the agro reduction.  As long as you keep your activity to single target, bluff seems to be better overall than diplo, if you have to choose.  I'm running both at the moment, hotkeyed next to each other depending on what I'm doing.” – Brenna Wavekin

Bluff, Deception, and Radiance have a lot in common: mobs appear to use the Blind mechanic, at least in part, when under the influence of these effects ... so not only are they subject to SA damage, they also appear to have to "find" you if you keep moving around them. 

Balance

This is good for getting back up off the ground once you’ve been knocked down. Since being immobilized and being dead are pretty close things for a rogue, this skill deserves a little seeing to, particularly if you’re a rogue of the lower-dex variety. There are many quests in which a good balance helps, and at least one raid that requires a good balance and another one where it can be very handy (The Twilight Forge and The Master Artificer ... in the former, 36 to 40 will essentially make you knockdown immune, not sure what the levels are in MA). Worth at least a few points.

Tumble

I go back and forth on Tumble. Some days, this is probably the first place I wouldn’t have spent as many skill points in. Yes, at 31 tumble you get to do those cool side rolls and backflips, and at 36+ you get the sweet forward rolls, and, yes, being able to fall long distances without a feather fall item is very nice, as is being able to move about quickly while crippled or slowed. My two complaints are I can't do anything else while in mid tumble (this is a large disadvantage of the skill compared to say, jump as an evasive technique), and I can't "downshift" my tumble for those times I only want to be doing small, quick rolls. General concensus is, 1 point so you can use it, then forget about it ... Brenna has max ranks.

EDIT: With Update 5, it looks like tumble no longer works while crippled or slowed. Fedora.

“One very nice thing about tumble movement is it doesn't interrupt your attack chain as regular movement does. So, once you get good at tumble, just use forward and side rolls to get back on target of a moving monster and keep your attack chain (and yourself) rolling.” – Brenna Wavekin

Haggle

Haggle makes purchasing wands, scrolls, pots, and gear much cheaper. It does not, however, kill monsters or solve quests. If you've got the points for it, I recommend it ... it's also an excellent place for "spare" skill points, as you get value out of it without needing specific ranks to get that value. And a good haggle item is always a must.

“What feats do I want, and why?”

Two Weapon Fighting - Pros and Cons

Fighting with two weapons gives you more hits at the expense of to-hit and AC/DR.

Without a feat, it's a 20% chance of proceeding a hit with the offhand weapon, -6 to hit main hand, -10 offhand (-4/-8 if offhand weapon is light).

With the TWF feat, the proc is 40% chance, -4 main hand, -4 offhand (-2/-2 if offhand weapon is light).

With ITWF feat, the proc 60%.

With the GTWF feat, the proc 80%.

Easily the most common feat line taken by rogues, and for good reasons: SA is an on-hit proc, so more hits equal much more damage. However, if you're not hitting, toss on a shield to quickly give you an additional +2 (or +4, if you weren't using a light weapon in the offhand).  The offhand weapon only gets half the strength bonus applied to it.

A good deal of low to mid level content is easier S&B than TWF, because depending on your gearing, party makeup, AC, etc etc the advantages of a 40% extra proc are outweighed by the benefits of going single weapon and equipping a shield. Hotkey a shield somewhere in there, swap it out when you're going to town on badguy backsides, swap it in when they start to go to town on *you*. 

“I swap between TWF, THF, and Sword & Board depending on the circumstances.” – Brenna Wavekin

Precision

While running this toggled feat, you gain a +4 attack bonus and reduce fortification by 25%, but halve your damage, including any and all sneak attack damage. Greater Bane, Elemental, and Alignment based damage is not halved, however.  

The availability of various to-hit bonus gear, stat modifiers of various shapes and sizes, and ac reduction weapons ... coupled with the reduction in usefulness of stat damage and insta-kill weapons makes this feat pretty meh.  The to-hit tradeoff vs the damage tradeoff is simply not acceptable, given all the other options available. 

“A weapon or item with a Sneak Attack bonus, coupled with an Attack Bonus item when a bard isn't present, plus a good to-hit stat, means I don't miss very often.  If I do, I turn off Power Attack and/or hit it with a Destruction weapon to knock the target AC down.” – Brenna Wavekin

Improved Critical

A *very* popular feat in most of the rogue builds out there ... since this feat multiplies the threat range, a high threat range weapon really makes it useful. If you've got a seeker +10 dagger in your off-hand, and a good rapier in your main, look out! Very nice pick for a rogue.

The Spring Attack Line

Not very impressed, actually. I built Xanna, my 12/2 rogue/fighter, in part to work Spring Attack. It’s a good feat, and disregarding the -4 penalty to attack bonus for moving is very nice, but needing three feats to reach it just didn’t work for me. Dodge might have been useful for a sword 'n board spec'd rogue, but Mobility, as implemented in DDO, was just not worth the feat spent on it. The additional +4 to AC Mobility gives while tumbling is good, but not at the expense of having to tumble to get it (i.e. not at the expense of essentially removing yourself from the fight).

This is on the way to Tempest, so folks going 6+ ranger for that will have it anyway.

Combat Expertise and Company

Loved Improved Feint, a really lovely AoE bluff, and loved the extra AC of CE. However, every time I pulled out a wand or scroll, or cast a clickie, CE had to be restarted…this got old really, really fast and so I spec’d out of it. The AC is really, really nice, and Improved Feint is on a separate timer from your bluff/diplomacy so it can really open up a lot of attack opportunities. CE is a -5 attack bonus also, so be sure you’ve got a high enough attack bonus to fight effectively while running it, else you’ll need to think carefully about when you do and do not use it.

Power Attack

If you've got the feat and the attack bonus, go for it! Turn it off on mobs where the -5 attack bonus matters, turn it on when it doesn't. This may be one of the 'pick later' feats...once you get geared and leveled, you end up with a lot of extra attack bonus, particularly in non-Epic quests. At the 20 cap, solo, I turn off PA a fair amount of the time on high AC targets; grouped, I rarely turn it off on anything.

Skill Focus/Skill Feats

For the most part, I would shy away from these with the exception of Skill Focus: UMD. If you’re build is a little lower in the stats department (say, a low int build to get higher physical stats, and don’t yet have the gear to compensate), then you may want to put in Skill Focus: Search, Skill Focus: Disable Device, and/or Nimble Fingers to make up the difference.

However, with skill items that run up to +20, ranks that run up to 23, and stat bonuses that run into the +5s through +12s or better, the Skill feats stack up poorly from a cost/benefit perspective.

SF: UMD can be an exception because the best UMD skill item out there is +6 (greensteel item) and because at present there are so many useful things to do with scroll, wand, and item use in DDO. If you can hit a 39 or so, adding more gets a little less useful...39 gives you Greater Heroism and Heal scrolls without error, and even Resurrection and Greater Teleport on a '5'. 

Force of Personality

Note that this feat got significantly less good with the U1-ish changes to failed will save effects.

Think of this as a slot saver; if you've got spare feats, plus high cha, you don't need to slot a wisdom item for will saves. 

If you don't have the spare feat, don't care about will saves, have too few feats for what you want, or have already slotted a wis item, then this feat isn't for you.

Toughness

With the addition of Toughness enhancements for every race, it's very, very hard to not recommend every rogue take Toughness. One feat, and three AP, for 42 more HP at the 20 cap is very, very nice.

Ranged Feats

More to come...need some input from Ranged Spec rogues.

Choice Gear

General

Coinlord Favor
This isn’t an item per se, but allows you to carry more gear. To take full advantage of the rogue class, you’ll want gear to augment your skills, wands/scrolls/potions to help yourself out in and out of combat, and weapon selections to handle both regular monsters and such things as slimes/undead/constructs. All that gear takes up a lot of space, both on your hotbars and in your backpack. Coinlord favor gets you more backpack space (a rare drop, a damaged portable hole, is required for the second set of space), which lets you carry more of your esoteric gear, which in turn helps you get your job done.

User Interface Customization
Again, not an item per se, but allows you fast access to your gear, which, again, you’ll likely be carrying a lot of. That shield wand isn’t very useful stuffed into your backpack; having the best +15 disable device goggles doesn’t help you very much if you forget to put them on. Tip: put your best skill item next to the skill on your hotbar. That way, I can see immediately if, for instance, I’m going to disable a trap and don’t have my disable devices skill item on. I use a mix of mouse and hotkeys on Brenna:

• 1- Utility button (Enervate scrolls, wands for spamming, quest items, etc)
• 2- Diplomacy
• 3- Stealth
• 4- My Shield
• 5- My Shield
• 6- Primary Weapon Set
• 7 through 9 – Other Weapon Sets
• 10 – Heal potions
• F2 – Uncanny Dodge
• F3 – Assassinate or Haste Boost (depending on what I'm spec'd for at the time)
• F4 – Bluff
• F5 – Haste potions
• F6 - Remove Fear potions (I have a Panacea clickie...before I had that, Remove Blindness potions went here)
• F7 – Remove Curse potions
• F8 - Lesser Restoration potions.
• etc.
• etc.

Screenie of my current interface.

Tools and Skill Items
Get the best you can find for your level, always. I’m a ‘rogues are dps’ advocate, but since the class is the only one that gets to open locks and disable traps, I believe anyone playing the class should be able to do just that. As a rule of thumb, you should have items equivalent to your level, or if you can’t find items equivalent to your level, augment your skills with potions/clickies of Fox’s Cunning and/or Heroism until you find such. Tools seems to drop based on quest level; there is overlap:

• Masterwork lvl 1 to 3
• +1 lvl 2 to 4
• +2 lvl 4 to 9
• +3 lvl 8 to 11
• +4 lvl 11 to 12
• +5 lvl 13+

With decent scores, you can use tools equivalent to your level until you’ve got enough cash to keep yourself in +5s from the AH or high level quests. You should be using skill items with a bonus equal to your level or at most a couple levels down. Again, if you’re running a recommended dex and int, you’ve got some wiggle room, but you don’t want to stack low stats, low enhancements, low skill item, *and* low tools all together.

“I blew a box in VoN 4 that way; got in a hurry, figured I had plenty of room, and grabbed some masterwork off a vendor instead of fishing +3s out of my bank. The box is one of the high water marks for the level (shrine trap) and I blew it. Very embarrassing.” – Brenna Wavekin

Weapons

“of Deception” Weapons
Really, *really* nice on a high sneak attack designed rogues. Seems to proc ~5% of the time, so if you're a dual-wielding deception type with haste and speed boost, you'll get one every couple attack cycles. The visual effect is similar to Ray of Enfeeblement's (this flickering black nimbus around the target) and lasts for about ~2 seconds...enough for a couple of attack chains of sneak attack. Not something you can bank on, but good to get if you pick up agro or to create an opening. Effective use of Deception requires a sense of combat rhythm: go slowish, manage your agro, in and out behind the tanks, but when it hits you push in and *kill* the deceived monster. Not saying it doesn’t require practice, but I am saying it is *very* effective once you get good at it.

“The inclusion of Radiance and various other blind/incapacitate items waters down the value of Deception considerably...still very good on Reds, though. Basically, if the Red SAs, has enough HP that it's going to be around a few weapon cycles regardless of my weapon selection, and my Deception set isn't a DR handicap, then I use Deception...otherwise, I pull something else out of my kit and kill it with that.” – Brenna Wavekin

This effect is weapon specific, so having one in the offhand isn't going to put Deception on your main hand when you duel wield. There's a fair number of something of Deception in House D and on the AH for reasonable prices. And Deception is only a +1 add to the weapon’s level, meaning you can get high to-hit or extra damage weapon attributes fairly easily.

Analysis on Deception; note that you probably don't want to use this suffix in Shroud 4 specifically.

“If you're going to be Deception fighting, you want accuracy and speed, speed, speed. Your goal is to get the Deception to proc before you quite get monster agro, then keep proc'ing as you kill it. If you're going gtwf, with speedboost, and carry a stack of haste pots, you'll like it. If you're primarily sword and board or two handed and w/o speedboost, your proc'ing rate will be kinda meh. I'd still take it over a pure good suffix, though perhaps not a greater bane.” – Brenna Wavekin

Improved Deception weapons are now available (epic Spy Daggers and Midnight Greetings), at at least one item that grants existing weapons Improved Deception (upgraded Ring of Lies) is coming with U12.  These are Deception with a 10% proc (dev quote, "double the chance of Deception").

”of Backstabbing” Weapons
Only the best modifier of Backstabbing applies, but it applies to both weapons when you duel wield. Also available on items, which frees up a weapon for a better modifier (the Tinker's Set, Tharne's Goggles, upgraded Wretched Twilight, epic Hunter's Bracers are a few items that have the best bonus on them, a +5). Very good for rogue’s, since they're trying to get their SA's in anyway.  Note: the damage of a backstabbing weapon is 150% of its bonus, rounded up. So, as long as you don’t have agro, a weapon with “of Backstabbing +3” is going to be +3 to hit and +5 on the damage. 

"of Puncturing/Enfeebling" Weapons
Dual stat damagers are very nice until you hit Epics or other places where mobs have stat damage resistance. 

Puncturing does pretty much the same con damage per time as Wounding, if you're spec'd with imp crit: pierce and are using high threat puncturers. If you've got the strength to consistently punch through the DR of whatever you're fighting, then I would recommend Wounding; if not, I would recommend Puncturing. 

Note that Con to Zero now is a stun rather than a kill; this waters down the value of con damagers considerably, but still makes them useful. Of the two damage types, there are more synergies with Enfeebling + Crippling Strike, but dangerous melee mobs generally have higher Str than they do Con, so you get to the Con stun quicker...it's just going to depend on what you're fighting.  Beholders, for instance, are known for their really poor strength; plenty of rogues swear by weakening of enfeebling weapons when fighting them.

A fair number of mobs are immune to stat damage, period, and in Epics and in some higher level quests mobs have stat fortification that only allows stat damage a small % of the time. 

Red and purple mobs (bosses and raid bosses) are limited to 10 points of stat damage total; you'll see a shield pop up over their heads when they've hit the max damage mark.  In Epics, these also have stat fortification.

Holy of Pure Good Weapons
Great for undead until you get Greater Undead Bane weapons. If you can get these on blunts (for skellies) or slashers (for zombie types) all the better, but the Holy/Pure Good damage sidesteps their damage resistance anyway, so you’ll be doing *some* damage (always better than none) regardless of weapon or undead type. 

Armor

The best armor for your dex is the way you want to go. Adamantine typically has too high a skill penalty to use, while Mithril is in heavy demand. When looking at an armor, take a careful scan through for arcane spell failure; that will come into play whenever you try to UMD an arcane scroll but not when you’re using a divine scroll or any wand.

If you’re considering switching over to robes, a 30 dex and +5 armor bracers give the same armor class as a +5 Mithral chain shirt. Also, the quick-swap capability of robes gives them a great deal of utility over regular armor, which has a equipping delay that often makes switching impractical.

• Some key armor vs dex breakpoints (assuming +5 armor or +5 armor bracers):
  • Dex 20 -> Mithral Breastplate or Studded Leather (Arcane spell failure 15%)
  • Dex 22 -> Mithral Chain Shirt or Leather (Arcane spell failure 10%)
  • Dex 26 -> Padded (Arcane spell failure 5%)
  • Dex 30 -> Robes + Amor Bracers (Arcane spell failure 0%)

You can use a shield without getting the shield proficiency and without impacting your skills or attack bonus at all; just look for one that has no skill modifier. A shield will add to your arcane spell failure.

“At the moment, I’m wearing one of three different sets of Dragontouched outfits and use a Light and Darkness when need be.” – Brenna Wavekin

Utility

This section covers items not addressed elsewhere (e.g. under healing, UMD, tactics, etc.)

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Heavy Fortification

If you take none of my other advice, at least take this one: get Fort, and get Heavy Fort as soon as it becomes available.

Get this as soon as available; use lesser versions until then. With your hitpoints, the difference between a crit and death is too fine for words. Armor with heavy fort on it is probably the first thing you’ll encounter (seems to be min level 8). The auction house has heavy fort items, but these tend to be expensive except for armors.

As collectables go, the Black Anvil Mines ore run gives a great heavy fort necklace, level 9 required, and is not too hard to complete. I used to do solo ore runs in there at level 10, but it will take some practice if you're using level equivalent gear.

At level 11, Minos Legens is available: Heavy Fort + Toughness feat is hard to argue with. You can get this by collecting 20 tapestry pieces in the Orchard of the Macabre and turning them in to the collector in the northern part of the Necropolis.

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Debuff Removal Potions/Clickies
Remove Blindness, Disease, Poison, Fear, Lesser Restoration, and Haste (for removing Slow). Just get 'em. With the exception of Haste, you can also use all these potions on another player, just select the other player before clicking.

Death Block
When you start encountering beholders (say, level 8ish range perhaps) you *must* have deathblock; your fort saves are sub-par, and a death spell means just that (more often than not). You can still get disintegrated, but you won’t go down nearly as fast as you will without deathblock. Deathblock is first found on armors and shields, then on items. Items and shields are best, as you can quickly equip them if you need them, but armor is cheapest.

Note: Deathblock is not Deathward. Deathward is a buff that stops various negative energy effects, but can be dispelled. Deathblock specifically only stops death spells, but cannot be dispelled...which is key against beholders, as they constantly dispel buffs.

The best deathblock item is the Silver Flame neckace, once you've got it fully upgraded. This not only gives you deathblock, but also absorbs 10 negative energy effects per rest. Beholders also throw other negative energy effects at you, such as inflict wounds and level drains, which get absorbed by the necklace on a one per one basis.

Deathward is also very, very useful in non-Dispelling combats, as it blocks all negative energy effects as long as it's up. It also blocks the Vorpal effect, which Deathblock does not. The best Deathward clickie is the Goggles of the Render Guards from the Tangleroot end rewards.

“I'm carrying the necklace and three sets of goggles. Saved me many, many times.” – Brenna Wavekin

Luck Items
A luck bonus helps out your saves and boosts all your skills. This seems to come on named trinkets for the most part, unless you're slotting it in an epic blue/green/violet slot. Very excellent to have for the skill bonus and occasional save bonus.

Feather Fall Items
Even with a maxed tumble score, sometimes you want to drift down and steer so you can pick your landing spot. At the high levels, this is so useful as to be required gear ... as in, people will give you funny looks if you don't have it.

Underwater Action Items
As with Feather Fall items above. You typically have a lower con score than other melee classes, and so will have fewer hit points to survive drowning; swim itself is a strength skill, which will determine how fast you run out of breath and start taking damage. If you want to keep up (and not drown), you’re going to need one of these as soon as you can find one.

Jump Clickie/Items
Extremely handy for getting into unusual places to range monsters or to bypass/jump over traps and pits. You’ll get consistent use out of a jump item, and occasional but needed use out of a jump clickie or potions.

Shield Wands/Clickies
Must have for bow/xbow/twf types, situational for others, but I recommend carrying them to handle monsters who like to spam force spells. A fighter often has the hit points to grit through these kinds of onslaughts. Rogue’s typically do not. Note: These will not, by the way, help you against a force trap.

Planar Girds
These are rare items, but very, very useful to a rogue as they not only boost your skills, they boost your saves, your attack bonus, provide a cushion of extra hit points, and make you immune to Fear. They’re available at level 9, and drop only in the quest Xorian Cipher, but are very, very nice to have for those moments when you don’t have Greater Heroism available from an arcane caster or don't quite have the UMD to scroll your own. A higher level necklace version (ml 18) drops pretty much like candy if you run the Amrath quests...these are exclusive, however, so you only get one.

Buff Potions/Clickies
Heroism and Haste are pretty much must haves, until you have easy access to a Planar Gird or can scroll Greater Heroism. Boosts saves, attack bonus, and skills. Even once you get into the high levels and can generally get a Greater Heroism from a friendly mage, you’ll want these as backups if for some reason you can't Gird or scroll. Likewise, Haste whenever you need it makes you better at everything you do, so always carry a stack of Haste pots....faster is better: attacking, retreating, jumping, whatever. If you're not shooting for AC (which is probably any time your dual-wielding), consider Rage potions/clickies; +2 str for a little extra damage and +2 con for some extra hitpoints...+1 to will saves is bonus.

Skill/Stat Potions
At the lower levels, being able to put on a Fox’s Cunning or a Cat’s Grace is very, very useful. Once you get +4 or better stat items, the utility of these drops off (they don’t stack).

About the same time, however, you’ll start picking up collectables wanted by some folks on the Spire in House D: skill and stat items from +1 to +3 that stack with your items and last two minutes. Depending on your build and where you are on the sweet spots of various skills, you may want to turn in your collectables and keep a bunch of these on hand. Unfortunately, the House D stat and skill boosts have a very, very short duration...better to use them for a specific, static thing (doing a particularly hard trap, hitting a stat rune) than to rely on them in combat.

If you get sufficient Yugoloth favor (gained in Amrath), you can buy "yugo pots"; they give stacking stat buffs, plus hidden effects.  The two I like best when I know there's going to be a lot of damage flying around are Essence of Desire (+2 con, +20 additional HP, -5% attack speed) and Essence of Fury (+2 str, -4 will save).  I don't use them all the time because of the negatives, but I try to use them when appropriate.

Divine Power Clickies
Very nice. Get a clickie of Divine Power with 3 to 5 charges on them and keep it handy. Only lasts for ~45 seconds but it's a really sweet 45 seconds of Fighter BAB. The auction house and broker's both tend to have them. Don't buy the ones with only 1 charge, that'll be a waste of pack space. If you’ve got attack bonus to spare (depending on your build and what you’re fighting) you will get more or less use out of these. 

Stealth

How Stealth Works

Whatever your hide or move silently scores, nothing happens until you turn the skill on. Stealth is a toggle, removed if you cast (spell/wand/scroll/some potions), tumble, or take a hit in combat. As with any item, skill, or spell in DDO, putting it somewhere easily visible and accessible on your hotbar ensures you use it more often and effectively. Brenna’s is ‘4’ on her 1st hotbar, as she uses it all the time.

Stealth, as implemented in DDO has three primary uses, generally increasing in order of difficulty. I’ve chosen to illustrate those three primary uses in order of difficulty as a framework discussing stealth:

• Being the Scout: Seeing the monsters before they see you and your party.
• Being the Assassin: Getting up on a monster before it’s alerted, and attacking first.
• Being the Master Thief: Accomplishing an objective or slipping by groups of monsters between you and your objective…without having to fight.

These require, in ascending order, greater levels of hide/move silently and - important note here – greater levels of experience using stealth. Each level of stealth builds on the ones before it.

"Stealth, like many other things in Stormreach, has a twitch component. More practice using it means better twitch, which means better results.” – Brenna Wavekin

Scout

• The Dark Crouch
• The ‘Eyes’ Icon
• Hot Feet

Being the Scout is simply being in stealth when you turn a corner or enter a room; if you can see them before they can see you, you and your party pick up an edge. If it looks like a tough fight, you can stealth back around the corner and buff or make other readiness before engaging. If you’re doing a series of rooms looking for a random boss or whatnot, this can let you skip individual fights and conserve resources. If you already know the quest well enough that you know where each and every fight is, then you don’t need to do this.

“See them before they see you.” – Brenna Wavekin

The Dark Crouch

The first thing one notices is the ‘dark crouch’ that slides over your character when you enter stealth; this is a useful indicator, beyond the the active icon on your hotbar, that you’re actually *in* stealth. This becomes very handy if you’re using it for Being the Master Thief below; more about that later, but for now just know if your fingers or mouse can find your Stealth skill and your stealth items without having to hunt for them, everything in the more advanced stealth sections gets much, much easier.

The ‘Eyes’ Icon

The second thing one notices is usually the ‘eyes’ icon off to one side of your character. The eyes represent the ambient lighting, and in so doing give you a general feel for the circumstance bonus someone has to see you: more eyes mean a larger circumstance bonus, and so a better chance a monster is going to spot you. When picking out a path to or through monsters, you want to minimize the number of eyes as often as possible, and minimize the amount of time you spend with more than one eye.

“In other words, stick to the shadows, and avoid well lit areas. “ – Brenna Wavekin

Hot Feet

The third thing one notices is ‘hot feet’ around your character’s feet; these red flashes indicate a nearby monster can hear you. Stop moving and look for indicators as to which one, then back out of their range before they drift close enough to agro on you. Avoid making more noise where possible, and pick a route you can move through with a minimum of ‘hot feet’.

“If you’re noisy, and close to monsters, try to move as little as possible and let them walk by or, better, look ahead and pick out the least noisy routes.” – Brenna Wavekin

If you don’t have at least a positive stealth score, or don’t turn your stealth on, hang back a bit. If you’re noisy, or just don’t want to stealth, again, hang back a bit. Just being *in* stealth forces the monsters to do a spot check to find you, and if there’s enough distance between your feet and their eye, they won’t pick you up right away. However, few things are more annoying than sliding around a corner, seeing a nasty looking fight, and be in the process of telling the rest of the party about it only to find the monsters coming straight at you because the mage is just standing there in plain sight or a character in heavy armor carrying a command item is trying to stealth with a -10 or worse stealth score. Yes, we all have that intolerable itch to see what’s going on, but have at least a positive hide/move silently and turn your stealth on if you want to stack up on the stealthers; there’s hardly anything to it, so long as you don’t behave foolishly.

“Your gear often has stealth of its own, and can sneak up on you; take a look at your active hide/move silent scores with your gear equipped. Your active skill might (unpleasantly) surprise you.” – Brenna Wavekin

Assassin

• Sight
• Sound
• Smell(?)

Being the Assassin means, for a rogue, getting close enough to land the first strike undetected. To the concepts of Scouting above, we’ll add Sight, Hearing, and then add a bit about spiders and oozes/slimes, which seem to smell you. Your best single rule of thumb is to treat the monsters as you’d treat the real thing if you were trying to slip by them: stay out of their sight line, and don’t get too close until you’re ready to put that dagger in their back.

Sight

Monsters use their eyes to Spot you. This is a function of their Spot score vs your Hide score, but no die roll is involved; they see you or they don’t. Most monsters have their eyes in front of their heads, so if they’re facing away, they can’t Spot you. Distances is a factor, as is ambient light (the number of ‘eyes’ you have next to you), so the shorter the distance and the better the light, the higher the Hide score you need to remain undetected. Monsters get an incremental bonus to Spot the longer you stay in their sight lines, so you want to minimize the time you’re in a monster’s direct line of sight even if you’re doing so at a range that seems safe. Four legged critters of the canine and feline varieties seem to have a higher Spot score than the two legged ones, often significantly so.

Sound

Monsters (again, with some exceptions) use their ears to Listen for you, comparing it to how well you Move Silently. As with Spot above, distance is a factor, as are Hot Feet. This is an omni-directional ability; no aspect of the monster seems to be riskier than another. If you aren’t moving, they don’t get a Listen check even if you’re not in stealth; if you’re breaking things (say, around that corner just before you stealth) they *do* get a listen check and may be facing or wandering your way to investigate when you come to that corner to take a peak around. I’ve not found a good, verifiable test to see if they gain an incremental Listen bonus as they do Spot.

Smell(?)

Spiders and oozes/slimes appear to use some mechanism other than either hearing or sight to locate you; they appear to use some flavor of tremor sense (though it may simply be incredibly high spot and listen scores), and it does have a range or a trigger (else they’d be tracking you from the moment you enter the dungeon). They will lock on to you pretty much right away when you cross their agro threshold and start right up attacking you.

Using these concepts should allow you, with a decent Hide/Move Silently score, to slip up on a monster with a good chance of landing the first hit. At the low levels, this can be difficult to pull off, particularly against high Spot/Listen monsters (which gave rise to the myth that dogs can see through Stealth), but as you get good skill items and put in some practice, it isn’t very difficult to get the First Strike in.

Master Thief (aka ‘The Stealth Picture’)

• Considerations
• Contingencies

This is what makes all the points spent in Hide and Move Silently worthwhile: the ability to simply slip by a horde of monsters and either snag an item or go right along our merry way to the next step of the quest with resources intact. There are many simple encounters that Scout or Assassin skills are sufficient to pull off; however, when I’m talking Master Thief, I’m talking precision movement among and around multiple (and often moving) monsters of varying detection abilities in physically complex areas or close quarters, often to filch an item they’re guarding, pull a lever, and get out again without alerting them.

“There are few things as rewarding to a rogue as slipping into a heavily guarded citadel, sliding past guards, traps, and wards, then making off with the l00t without ever having alerted a guard to your presence.” – Brenna Wavekin

Considerations

• Terrain
• Monster Behavior

Consider the discussion under Scout (which is mostly about the rogue), add the content under Assassin (which is mostly about the monsters you’re trying to sneak around) then combine them into a mental map of your environment, actions and options. I was originally going to call this section ‘Analysis’, but Considerations + Contingencies is a better mnemonic.

“Bah, just call the whole thing ‘The Stealth Picture’ and have done with it.” – Brenna Wavekin

Terrain

The area you’re stealthing through is more than flat space with pools of light and shadow. Use the area around you as part of your stealth picture and improve your results. Some terrain is helpful, and other terrain is hurtful.

Boxes are more than breakables, and can often be climbed, either to get more standoff from a patrolling monster or to climb over a big pile of them and drop down the other side, bypassing him entirely. Bridge railings, too, are often mountable while stealthed and can often give you enough room to avoid stepping on the guards. Ladders, if you start sneaking *before* mounting them, can also give you a clean way to avoid trouble. Water, like ladders, can be sneaked through if you start *before* you enter…you’re usually not so concerned about being stealthed *in* the water as you are being stealthed when you eventually come *out* of the water.

Vases and other objects too small to be climbed, yet large enough to prevent your movement, are a pain. They can make an ordinarily empty room something of a maze, if there are a lot of them lying around. The same with braziers and other illuminants; not only do they create large pools of light, they often block movement. This can be useful for playing ring around the rosy with an alerted monster, but generally they just get in the way.

Some terrain is large enough to block line of sight; these are both useful and dangerous, as you can use them to reduced the chance of being spotted by putting them between you and the monster, but also can be quite dangerous, because you won’t know if there’s another monster on the far side of the object until you get there. Pillars, thrones, very large stacks of crates, fallen debris, door frames…these are all examples of this kind of terrain, terrain you can sometimes use to alter monster behavior.

“When I open doors, I stand off to one side so the frame is between me and the room. Then I can often go into sneak and take a look around the room without pulling agro.” – Brenna Wavekin

Terrain and Monster Behavior complicate things. No matter what, there will always be new things to observe in mid-sneak, either things you missed when you first decided to sneak or due to actions of the monsters. How well you adapt to a changing stealth picture will determine how good you will be at the sneaksman’s trade. Sure, you *were* planning on sliding to the left of the warbosses room in Tangleroot, but you’ve just noticed one of the clerics moved over next to another there in the back, and going the left side just got a lot harder. Do you go for it and linger in that pool of shadow for a few seconds and see if he wanders back the other way, thus clearing a space for to slip through? Or do you take a quick risk and cross the open but heavily lit center of the room while everyone appears to have his back turned?

Monster Behavior

• Asleep
• Non-alerted
• Alerted
• Agro’d

Learn to read the monsters. Caster types typically have a higher Spot than warrior types; monsters that are invisible typically have higher senses than those that aren’t. Monsters who continuously or randomly move their heads or bodies around are harder to deal with than those that walk a continuous patrol path with little deviation. Paying attention to what the monster is doing will both clue you in on their relative threat and let you know how close you are to breaking your stealth.

Asleep

Self-explanatory. Sleeping monsters are the easiest to sneak past, and the least likely to be stirred up by nearby combat…just don’t expect them to *stay* asleep if you walk over them or kill another monster in the same room. You can often, however, get away with opening a door, pulling a switch, or opening a chest while they’re around. Just be sure to drop back into stealth immediately and, *most importantly*, before you move. Sleeping monsters react to sound rather than sight; you can get cocky after sliding around a whole mess of them, then take just one un-stealthed step and alert them all.

“There are old rogues, and there are bold rogues, but there are no old, bold rogues.” – Brenna Wavekin

Non-alerted

The default monster state. Depending on what you do and where, they can transition to the Alerted state or directly to Agro’d in a split second. Typically, a monster moves from non-alerted to alerted by using his Listen score; you made a little noise and the monster starts looking around more actively and/or begins to drift over to your location. You can use this to your advantage if you can manage to be outside the area of the monster’s observation, then use a ranged weapon to make noise over in the direction you want the monster to go (this will break stealth, so you need to be and stay out of the monsters view). This will shift the monster to an alert state, but it is sometimes more useful to have an alerted monster over to one side than a non-alerted one standing right where you intend to stealth.

Watch their sight lines, the way they move their heads, and how they move. A scout that just moved is less likely to move again, at least right away…giving monsters a chance to move will make openings where there were none.

“Think places *and* spaces: where you want to go, and the tight spots you need to pass through to get there.” – Brenna Wavekin

Alerted

A monster saw or heard something, but not enough to draw agro right away. This is also a common default state to spawned monsters; you can tell who they are, they’re the ones that run in and start doing search patterns in the corridor you just entered after a scout rang a bell, or after a scripted trigger. Alerted monsters have a higher Spot and Listen than un-alerted ones, and as such have a higher impact on your stealth picture than un-alerted ones.

Agro’d

They’ve Spotted you, either because they saw through your stealth or because you dropped it for a moment. This won’t immediately break your stealth to all the monsters present, but the ones close to you will be right on you. You’ve got a couple options here: move and re-stealth, fight, or flight.

Move and Re-Stealth

Monsters de-agro poorly, if at all, but you *can* re-establish some semblance of stealth even if you picked up agro. If you try it, break line of sight as soon as possible by going around a corner or ducking behind a pillar so they stop incrementing their Spot score; switch to a darker area and move for distance (preferably off their path of direct approach) to try and reduce their spot. So long as you have stealth active, they’ll be forced to make Spot checks to locate you. This leads to the ‘jerky’ behavior on the part of the monsters, as they move to, stop, and then attack the location they last Spotted you. If you’re nimble and have good ground speed from striders, haste, shadow walk, or the like, you’ve got a chance of evading the slower moving monsters.

“Drow scorpions and the like can never be considered ‘slower moving monsters’.” – Brenna Wavekin

You still have your stealth picture, but it is now infinitely more complicated than it was before, as the agro’d monsters will keep trying to locate and kill you until they either leash or are blocked by other monsters and terrain. It is entirely possible, however, to keep your stealth in the presence of non-alerted monsters while being pursued by agro’d ones…it’s just very difficult, as every time you get hit, your stealth drops and you can potentially agro more monsters. This takes a skill with stealth that is largely reflex, and an intuitive use of the stealth picture.

“My personal best here is from ‘Purge the Fallen Shrine’; we picked up agro while shooting a stealth video and I ended up bouncing in and out of stealth pretty much continuously while trying to gather stones and get them to the shrine. I think at one point I had the whole map looking for me, but not quite able to lock onto me. Dozens of mephitis, flensers, and reavers running around and striking at shadows trying to find me. Funniest thing I ever saw.” – Brenna Wavekin

Fight

Fighting in a suddenly agro’d room can be hectic; if you suddenly end up surrounded by monsters all taking a swing at you, casting spells, or otherwise making your life uncomfortable, you’re in a bad spot. Odds are, you’re wearing your stealth items instead of your fighting gear, you’re probably not fully buffed, and you’re probably at least a little bit startled by the event. On top of all that, if you could take them all easily you probably wouldn’t be stealthing in the first place. Not a pretty picture; I’ve lost count of the number of times stealth went bad and I picked up debt.

Flight

Just take off and go for a safe spot. I prefer this, in general, to fighting it out, since if I could just take them all on I’d probably not have bothered to sneak in the first place. The hard part about flight is, you generally want to have an idea of your escape route *before* things go bad; it's far too easy to pick up additional agro, or trap yourself, in the heat of the moment.

Where to Practice Stealth

Originally, I was going to create a laundry list of questions that I ask myself constant while doing a hard bit o' sneakin'...but then I realized that just won't work. Instead, let me recommend a few quests that I learned to sneak from, and the levels at which I did them. As a rule, you want to start learning the Master Thief type of sneaking in an error friendly quest...that is, one you can survive your mistakes in. Then, as you get better, ramp up the danger of being uncovered. All of the below is solo/duo; sneaking is actually a lot easier to learn with fewer people, since it's becomes easier to figure out your mistakes when you're the only one making them.

• Water Works
  • Go in there with a 20ish Hide/Move Silently at, say, level 4. Get used to watching for patrol paths, and get used to the move-stop-wait-move rhythm of the kobolds. Try slipping out of your Move Silently gear to drop your move silent score while still keeping your Hide gear up...see if you can use that to pull investigating monsters singly away from the group, then do away with them around a corner.
• Giant Caves (East and the North one closest to the Ruins of Threnal)
  • Work this one with a 35ish Hide/MS and level 8 to 10. Lot of tight corridors, monsters with varying spot scores, diverse terrain. Get good enough to slip up on the chest and get the l00t without alerting the giants (*Really* teaches you about timing and tracking monster sight lines and hearing distances).
• Purge The Fallen Shrine
  • Work this with, say, a 40+, and it's dicey as there are multiple tight spots in which you may be uncovered. See if you can get regular at getting to the alcove chest and l00ting it. This is probably a lvl 10+ area to try, and even then you're going to do a bit of dying getting good at it. There are no doors you have to worry about getting opened, so you're practicing avoidance and finding gaps in the sometimes tight groups of monsters.
• Black Anvil Mines
  • Level 12+ probably (I did it when the level cap was 10, but it was a bit painful. Still, learned a lot...), same hide requirements. This one's a toughy, because you've got several doors to open, a key to steal, and mixes of tough casters + elementals to deal with. Have a good ranged weapon that will take down elementals, then see if you can slip in, kill a few here and there, and get all 15 pieces of adamantine ore.