"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

Rogue: Specialty

I'm not listing all the pre-reqs, nor all the bennies. If you want to look those up, roll a level 1 rogue on any server and select "Show Unavailable" under enhancements. :)

Another specialty to consider isn't listed: None. You can reset your enhancements every three days, and the specialities all cost for the benefits they give. Depending on your gear and build, play around with and without them...see if you can find a combo you like better.

Acrobat

The staff alacrity bonus is nice and seems to stack with most everything. It falls behind TWF, however.

I've not played with the class since they got the "add dex to SA damage when using a staff" ability; I don't think it makes up for the additional damage output from TWF given the weapon options available. 

The trip immunity, while not total, is very sweet...it's worth repeating, knockdown immunity isn't total immunity, you'll still be getting bounced around by a Titan if your balance isn't high enough (seems like mid to high 30s is enough), and moved by air eles/overruns, just not necessarilty knocked down. Staff is a reach weapon, which can be useful in some of the same circumstances.

The thing I liked most about Acrobat is the passive bonus to movement speed: you can get into trouble and out again very, very quickly. I was very pleasantly surprised by just how much that extra 10% matters in a lot of quests, and if you're working a multiclass build you can stack with things like Ranger/Barbarian run boosts, or Barbarian passive speed increase (not sure if it stacks with Monk passive speed increases).

Assassin

Assassin I: Poisons

Assassin II: Assassinate, an insta-kill attack from stealth

Assassin III: Vorpal strikes allowed on any attack that's a sneak attack

The Assassinate insta-kill is pretty sweet, but requires some twitch and items to pull off. Some mobs are very hard to Assassinate once they're agro'd, because they throw cleaves and such that clip you while you're moving in.

A DC 30+ Assassinate is pretty much required for level 16 (Vale of Twilight) quests...a 30 won't ensure a kill, but hits pretty often (say, ~75%). The Assassinate chance falls off dramatically in The Reaver's Refuge, and even further in the Devil's Battlefield, due to both the increasing saves on the target mobs and their behavior (setting up an assassinate on a cleaving Orthon takes a lot of practice, and a tight cluster of them can be a pita).

If you can get into the 40+ range, it gets good again in many Epics, particularly the easier House P and D ones, and of course, better in the lower level stuff.

Assassinate hits not just the mob you selected, but also whatever is in your weapon set's collision area...you can hit more than one mob per Assassinate. Dual rapiers/khopeshes do *not* have a bigger collision area than dual daggers, rapier + ss, etc...I used to labor under this misapprehension until I tested out the various arcs.  If you have a doublestrike %, people have reported up to a triple Assassinate, though I've not been able to confirm this personally ... in theory, it's possible: all mobs in the collision rage, 1 kill off the main hand, 1 off the the off hand, and one more from the double strike.

While it isn't in the pre-reqs, Faster Sneaking is very, very good with Assassinate...being able to move into and out of position between monster attacks, being able to sneak faster than monsters can move while Assassinate is recharging, etc are very, very valuable things to have.  I've not used faster sneaking for a while, for a few reasons: AP are tight, I have good stealth striders and hotkeyed haste pots, more tools are available these days, and I got reasonably good at the pop-up, so I need it less.

The Pop-Up: Star of Argonnessen showed me this for assassinate back in Mod 6, I think.  I was watching him zap stuff in Coal Chamber (iirc): jump up, hit stealth in mid air, pop the assassinate when you hit the ground or while still in mid-air.  Hotkeys are, well, key here, as is a little practice.  Experiment.

Wave n' Kill: Another nifty trick with Assassinate is to combine it with Bluff:  target the mob that's agro'd on you, run at it, bluff/sneak/Assassinate (as one motion, pretty much).  If you've timed it right, you'll reach the mob, in sneak, just in time to Assassinate it and before it's got a chance to re-target you after the Bluff.  Can be tricky; some folks like to work a little sidestep, a jump around behind, other other footwork in there, but it's a pretty nifty trick once you get the timing and hotkeying worked out.

Assassin III gives you a chance at a vorpal strike on a Sneak Attack. The vorpal strike acts in all ways like a weapon vorp: insta-kill below the HP threshold (currently 1000hp), 100hp of untyped damage above that threshold. Bosses are not immune to the extra damage, just as they are not immune to the extra damage on a confirmed 20 provided by a vorpal weapon.

Some tips on actually putting it all together:

Originally Posted by kamimitsu
Monsters get an increasing Spot check modifier the longer you stay in front of them. Stand there long enough and they WILL pass. As best as I can tell, there is no visual indication of when they attempt their checks. So, don't wait around in their line of sight. This is also a good reason to also equip your Hide and MS items EVEN if you are above the threshold of being seen (if you're having inventory issues, I recommend a Ring of Shadows- it's only +10 to both, but it's one slot). Being much higher than their Spot modifier gives you more time to move in before their situational modifier is high enough to catch you out. Faster sneaking is also a plus here for lessened time in their Line of Sight.

If you move too close, you'll bump them and your chance to assassinate is gone. Knowing the length of your attack arc is pretty important here. A secondary note, some monsters 'sensing zone' seems to be larger than the circle at their feet.

What does that mean? It means you can assassinate Johanie (I have) or any other monster from the front. You just have to move in quickly (before the increasing modifier catches up to your Hide score), and pull the trigger without touching him.

If you are having trouble assassinating from the front: # Get a higher MS/Hide value (item, GH, etc.) # Move faster on approach # Find your 'sweet spot' for distance.

Happy hunting.

The bonus to stealth and bluff were also very cool; with Assassin spec'd in, and good stealth gear, I was able to complete Monestary of the Scorpion elite at level with regularity...without killing a single mob (end boss died to "Misadventure"). Without this Way, I always end up having to clear the non-reds away from the end room before I could stealth the puzzle.

The bonus to sneak attack and crit confirmation keep poisons useful, and while I used to think the poisons themselves were kinda meh at the higher levels, here's some data on their utility in the Vale of Twilight:

Originally Posted by Venar
Well, i went ahead and grabbed Assassin 1 on Paxa

I can tell you this: the poison works.

I went into the vale from the main entrance, and engaged 3 orange named: # Tony the Tiger # Jukree the Spider # Pukru the Ogre Magi

After dispatching his ogre guards, i jumped on Tony. On purpose, i decided to drop my usual weapons and equiped my dual GT of disruption weapons, to make sure he lives long enough to test the poison. I used the poison that stops spellcasting.

He opened with a force missile. I started swinging at him, and saw in the initial swings 2 blue "save" icon (and a few immunity from the disruption). He landed me a melf arrow. And then nothing. He just stood there, then moved away, and then back, as if not sure what to do, but he didnt cast a thing. I switched to my usual killer weapons and finished him.

Jukree: Jukree just kept having immunity symbols. Duh, spiders are immune to poison.

Pukru: I attacked the blue ogre and he didnt cast a thing. He stood there, swung his sword a few times. He then moved underground.

Conclusion: yes, the poison work. Conclusion 2: yes, i realise that currently, caster mobs dont live long enough for it to make any difference. Or are immune to poison like in Runing with the Devils.

Mechanic

This one gets a poor rep, undeserved in my opinion. While leveling, you end up seeing a wide variety of quest levels and don't necessarily have all the top tier gear...while I'm a big believer in "Rogue as DPS", there's no reason *not* to take this until you get your gear and trap skills up...the DPS of a rogue is in the class levels anyway, so there's no reason you can't be a Mechanic and still throw down with the best of 'em.

I ran this during my reincarnation from level 6 to level 16. Never missed the other PrEs, hit all the trap DCs without breaking a sweat, and lead the majority of the kill counts. Duoing with a wf sorc, the HoT (RoT? Repair over time?) was pure gold in the 8 to 10 range. This PrE is definitely worth looking at while leveling/gearing.

Capped, geared characters, however, will likely find this PrE somewhat lacking; the tweaks to ranged attacks, and the additions of an int bonus to damage on repeaters have given the PrE a little something something, but it's still lacking a bit.  A ranged combat pass is suppose to happen in ~U13, but it's hard to predict what that means.  I'd like to see the devs bump the DCs and/or damage on the PrE's crafted traps up a bit to make strategies involving crafted and set traps more useful.