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The Versatile Rogue

The rogue by far the most versatile class among the three character classes in Diablo Classic. Other than her strength in archery, she has many attributes of a great melee fighter.  Her high dexterity offers greater amount of to-hit bonuses than warriors and enables the rogue to attain perfect blocking far more easily than any other class.  Decent amount of magical capacity, and a substantial mana ball means that she is able to supplement her strong physical attacks with magical ones, making rogues a very formidable and powerful class.

Recently, there have been several different discussions about how a rogue can be played? Opinions varied between high ac and low ac; choices of weapons; to use magic as protective supports or as offensive weapons etc... All these stems from the fact that the rogue is easily the most versatile character class in Diablo Classic (IMO at least). Play her as a minimage, a warrior or an archer. It makes little difference as she can be just as effective and powerful no matter which style you play.

How should one play a rogue? To answer this, you might want to consider the following questions:

	Would you prefer the safe and invincible high-ac approach, or the more delicate but potentially more beneficial low-ac approach?
	For your weapons, would you rather use the "traditional" weapon (ie. the bow), or maximise the use of your high dex by using sword(or club)/shield?
	With regards to magic, would you prefer using magic as a means of defence and transportation, or as a primary means of attack as well?
	Are you content to play the rogue as it is, or would you want to try out more challenging variants?

This guide serves to provide some insight on the various ways you can play a rogue. It is divided into the following sections:   

1.    High Armor Class versus Low Armor Class
2.    Archer-Styled versus Melee-Styled
3.    Rogue's Spellcraft
4.    The Power of Stealth Play
5.    Equipping your Character
6.    Guide to Playing Styles
7.    Variants of Play for Rogues
8.    Links to Some Excellent Sites

High Armor Class  vs  Low Armor Class

High Armour Class

"Having a high ac means that enemies will miss you most of the time, allowing you to massacre them more easily as you will not have to go through hit recovery or blocking. Naturally, you will not get stunlocked as well..."

	Advantage: you will very seldom get hit by enemies and can thus survive more easily against mobs.
	Disadvantages: ac gives NO protection against any form of magical attack such as spit, bloodstars n fireballs, lose the possibility of having a beneficial prefix on your armour, IMO, it is really quite difficult to obtain a good high-ac armour with a good suffix.
	Typical examples: Awesome/Saintly Fullplates of Sorcery/Stars/Precision etc...

Low Armour Class

"While having high armour class is definitely a far safer way to play in general, the thrills and benefits that low armour classed playing style bring cannot be underestimated."

	Advantages: have a beneficial prefix such as +resist on the armour, thus freeing up a jewelry slot for +mana, good low-ac armour are easier to come by since any base item type will do, most good combinations (such as obsidian/stars) are purchasable at griswold.
	Disadvantage: if not careful, will get torn apart vs melee creatures as they have autohit against you.
	Typical examples: Naj's Plate/Sacvenger's carapace Obsidian (or other +resist) shirt of Stars/Sorcery/Precision/Giants etc...

Essentially the difference lies in the ease at which the enemies can hit you. For high ac, you sacrifice one prefix slot for a greater comfort zone as the enemies will have much difficulties hitting you. For low ac, though the advantage of the added prefix can be great, the danger and thrill of low ac cannot be underestimated. All in all, it would depend on the way you play (whether you are careful or reckless).

For less experienced gamers, i would certainly recommend high ac as it allows for a greater degree of carelessness and improves your chances of survival in the dungeons.

Archer-Styled  vs  Melee-Styled

Bows (or Crossbows)

"The starting weapon of a rogue and the area where she is really VERY proficient in, no class can match the rogue in using the bow as a weapon..."

	Pros: very fast rate of fire, the only weapon a rogue can stun an advocate with, bows tends to deal more damage per unit time than many melee weapons for rogues, very high to-hit considering the amount of dex the rogue possesses, in event of a miss, arrows can still hit enemies behind the target, kills the enemies before the enemies reaches you, thus greater safety.
	Cons: no shield, thus no blocking and the loss of a prefix and suffix, durability goes down quite fast (small point since gold is abundant), arrows tend to miss a lot more than melee weapons, thus dealing inconsistent damage,
	Typical examples: Savage bow of heavens: high damage bow with +all Emerald bow of heavens: resist bow with +all Jade/Massive bow of swiftness: fast bow with great potential

Melee Weapons

"With high dexterity, a rogue has high to-hit, perfect blocking and high ac; and with decent magic, a rogue has rather high virtual hitpoints as well as defensive support, making her a lean mean fighting machine..."

	Pros: blocking, thus allowing less hits to go through, hence less damage taken, additional slots for a good prefix/suffix, tends to have a higher ac than when using bows, more consistent damage done to enemies due to less infrequent misses, certain setups provides a much faster rate of kill (think CC).
	Cons: ranged attackers may be a problem until telekill is mastered, much slower swing rate than bows, thus some monsters cannot be stunlocked, damage is low in general (compared to warriors at least).
	Typical examples: Kings Sword of Haste: hasted weapons. Kings Sword of Vamps: vampiric weapons. Civerb's Cudgel: the fastest killing weapon (IMO) for rogues. Dreamflange: ideal for mini-maging.

Difference here again lies in personal preference and styles. Both melee and bows have their advantages but luck with equipment/drops do affect how you play sometimes too. Eg, you'll never be able to play sword/shield well if you can't find a decent sword and a decent shield, likewise you can hardly be a good archer if all the bows you find are pathetic.

For less experienced gamers, i would recommend bows. Arrows are unlimited and bows should be enough for you to survive well enough to learn the game and develop your own style.

Rogue's Spellcraft

"For some reason, magic is the most powerful area of expertise a character can go into. A rogue character is certainly capable of mastering the realm of magic and using it to devastating effects..."

	Defence: Heal (or Heal Others) mainly for rogues who do not use manashield. Manashield the rogue has pretty decent magic and mana, so why not make use of it? Stone Curse very useful for thinning out enemy lines.
	Offence: (F-Fire, L-Lightning, M-Magic) Fireball (F) the highest damage fire spell (and perhaps overall as well) Guardian (F) useful for attracting the enemies bit by bit, provides lighting as well (useful for certain styles and variants). Chain Lightning (L) can be potentially VERY damaging (ie. kill a pack of balrogs in hell/hell with one cast?), for how to cast it well, check out Moriah's CL Pictorial . Charged Bolts (L) for how to cast it well, check out Dreams of the Sleeping God . Bone Spirit (M) can be used to attract fire-immunes from around corners, otherwise useless. Flash (M) teleflash kills non-magic immune creatures very quickly, for how to cast it well, check out Dr Disaster's Teleflash Guide .
	Miscellaneous Golem this supernatural being can be used both in offence and defence. Beware of bloodstars though. Teleport Town Portal

Depending on the individual, there may be other good scouting spells such as flame wave and elemental. Lightning is also a good substitute for chain lightning in certain situation and before you really mastered the intricate ways of chain lightning.

Magic is useful but it is up to the individual whether he/she wants to use magic as a primary weapon. Magic can usually do more damage per unit time than melee/bows but is often restricted in higher difficulty levels as the enemies get immune/resistant to magic.

The Power of Stealth Play

"She sneaked through the shadows, sword readied in her hands. Swiftly and silently, she slew the ogre guards with great ease. Ah, the power of darkness..."

A very often neglected aspect of gameplay is stealth. The darkness is a very powerful weapon which can easily by used to your fullest advantage. Why would you want to go stealth in the first place?

One scenario where stealth comes in very useful is during item recovery. If you have just lost your equipment to monsters, it may be rather difficult at times to go in there and get your equipment back. After all, if the enemies are strong enough to kill you while you are wearing your best equipment, they must surely be capable of killing you without your best equipment. By going stealth, you can either activate one enemy at a time, thus making them easier prey; or you can use infravision or some lighted projectile (e.g. firebolt, bloodstar, lightning arrow etc) to locate the enemies and avoid them altogether. That way, item recovery becomes much easier, especially if telekinesis is used. A good item recovery guide can be found at Cathrin's/Claudio's Diablo Page .

Stealth can also be a playing style as well. Town portal or guardian spells can be used to light up the environment (just the dungeon, NOT the monsters) for an extended period of time so that you will know where to go. Elemental arrows (ie from bows of lightning/thunder/burning etc), and other magical projectiles such as bloodstar can be used to locate monsters. Firing arrows or projectiles into the darkness beyond your light radius (and even off the screen) enables the rogue to kill many enemies without even seeing them.

In the event of total darkness (-80% light radius or more), the enemies will only notice your character and become activated when you come within two squares to the front, back, left or right of it.  If your rogue is standing on a square diagonally adjacent to the enemy, it will not be activated and you can hit it as much as you want (by shift-clicking) and it will not react. Of course, the use of this little trick is extremely CHEESY and not recommended at all by yours truly.

Some typical gear would include nightscape, gotterdamerung and some miscellaneous items of the night or items of the dark.

Equipping Your Character

Headgear

In my opinion, there are only three really good headgears for rogues:

	Royal Circlet (ac40, +10% light, +10 to all, +40 mana) no matter how you play your rogue, the royal circlet has only benefits and is a good helm in all cases.
	Thinking Cap (ac 2-4, +20% resist all, +1 slvl, +30 mana) more for mini-mages, the thinking cap provides spell levels and some resistance.
	Obsidian <heagear> of Sorcery (+31-40% resist all, +16-20 magic) again more for mini-mages, this headgear provides up to 20 magic and frees up a jewelry slot for +mana.

Two other good headgear which are a lot more restrictive are:

	Gotterdamerung (ac60, -40% light, +20 to all, NO resist) The major drawback here is the lack of resistance, which can really hurt. One way out is to leave it unidentified and use it for the 60 ac it provides (which IMO is not all that great for a rogue which already has lots of ac due to high dex.
	Helm of Sprits (ac6-8, 5% lifesteal) - Drawback here is the lack of ac and the lack of other benefits. The lifesteal effect can be rather useful when using the CC setup but not as good otherwise (as rogue's melee damage is rather pathetic).

Armour

The choice of armour for rogues is determined by which way you want to play your rogue, the safer "tank" approach; or the more thrilling "naked" approach.

High Armour Class Essentially, this means high-end awesome or saintly full plates (ac70-75) can provide up to 187 ac. Good suffix can vary from giants (for wearing the plate), sorcery (providing magic for spell-casting) and stars (for good +all).

Low AC Uniques would include naj's light plate and the scavenger's carapace. The Naj's Light Plate is an good mini-mage equipment, providing magic, resistance, spell level. The Scavenger's Carapace gives -15 dfe as well as lightning resist, thus reducing chance of being stunned. Non-unique armour will typically have a good +resist (obsidian, ruby, diamond, sapphire depending on needs and availability) as prefix, and precision, sorcery or stars as suffix.

Jewelry

Essentially, the jewelry setups usually depends not on what you want but more on what you have. Good jewels are VERY hard to come by, so you likely have to make do with what you have at hand.

	Prefixes: Basically, there are only two good types prefixes: +mana and +resist. My suggestion would be to try to reduce the number of +resist jewels to 2 or less, so that more +mana jewels can be used.
	Suffixes: IMO, there are two types of good suffix types: +all and +mag. Magic allows greater efficiency and effectiveness of a rogue's spell capabilities while + all gives good damage, magic (and thus overall advantages).
	Typical "Dream" Jewels are as followed: Obsidian Jewel of Zodiac (+31-40% resist all, +16-20 all) Dragon's Jewel of Wizardry (+51-60 mana, +21-30 magic)

Bows (or Crossbows)

	Damage Bows Bows along this lines are useful for low-mid level rogues as they provide higher damage than most other bows. However, they start to lose their shine as the rogue progresses in levels and gaining significantly large character damage, making the damage bonus of the bow rather trivial. Savage (long war) Bow of the Heavens (+110-130% dmg, +15 all) is the most prized bow in this line as merciless or ruthless cannot be generated together with heavens. The +all effect has good all-round effects and adds significant damage for a rogue.
	Elemental Bows Though its category is a bit dubious as elemental bows are also high damage bows, they are really in a league of their own. Against creatures not immune to the element, these bows can deal spectacular damage (due to a bug perhaps) MANY times over with one arrow compared to non-elemental bows. Two of the best bows along this line are Merciless (long war) Bow of Thunder (lightning) or Merciless (long war) Bow of Burning (fire).
	Resistance Bows At higher levels, the damage bonus from a damage prefix has makes much less difference. On the other hand, a resist bow helps to provide resistance, freeing up a possible jewel slot for +mana. Good for mid-high level rogues whose character damage starts to weigh a lot more than weapon damage. Emerald Bow of the Heavens is the best bow here though Obsidian Bow of the Heavens is much easier to find.
	Swiftness Bows Though damage may be less at first, at higher levels, swiftness bows can do more damage than the typical "damage bows". It has the added advantage of being able to keep several monsters in stunlock at the same time (in particular knights and witches). This keeps you from being mobbed. Again, good for mid-high level rogues whose character damage starts to get significant. Examples are Jade Bow of Swiftness (for resistance) and Massive Bow of Swiftness (for excellent damage).
	The Gnat Sting (HELLFIRE only) 1-2 damage, fast arrows, multiple arrows, indestructible. A highly under-rated bow, the gnat sting gives the rogue the ability to fire three arrows with one click (thus doing 300+ damage possibly). This gives the advantage of keeping up to three enemies (usually witches and knights); or enables the rapid massacre of one single enemy. Good position and firing angles have to be practised before the benefits of this bow can be optimised. In general, if you want three arrows from this bow, you will have to fire slower, at around once per 0.50 seconds (compared to 0.35 seconds for normal bows). This means that certain enemies (ie advocates) will escape if you fire three arrows, so you would have to go for rapid fire (only one arrow) in certain cases. But still, the offer of triple damage is too great for me to resist

Note: Unique bows and knockback bows are deliberately left out as they pale in comparison to the bows listed above and have very limited benefits.

Melee Weapons

	Hasted Weapons Mainly to speed up attack rate and thus damage per unit time. Preferably with a prefix that adds damage (such as kings or merciless series). King's (bastard) Sword of Haste ranks the highest here.
	Vampiric Weapons Economical, especially a rogue that uses manashield. Preferably with a prefix that adds damage (such as kings or merciless series). King's (bastard) Sword of Vampires is probably the best around.
	Unique Weapons Civerb's Cudgel (-3 dex, -2 mag, +200% vs demons):  The fastest weapon for killing enemies in hell. x3 TOTAL damage vs demons is no joke and cannot be underestimated. Dreamflange (+30 magic, +50mana, +1 slvl, +50% resist magic):  Need I say more? The typical mini-mage weapon of choice.

Shields

	Fast-block Shields In particular, Stormshield and Holy Defender. Fast block really helps a lot in the ability of a rogue to melee multiple enemies at one time.
	High AC Shields Awesome, Holy shields are usually used and good suffixes may be +hitpoints or of ages. Actually there are few good suffixes to speak of but +hitpoints and of ages are probably the best there are IMO.
	Resistance Shields Obsidian/Emerald shields provide some resistance, freeing up some slots for jewels.

Guide to Playing Styles

Playing styles greatly depend on the individual and there is no fixed style or best style to play a rogue due to her versatility. Some sample styles and setups are (but not restricted to):

	Archer possible setup: (in this case low ac) Royal Circlet (RC) Obsidian Shirt of Stars Savage Bow of Heavens Obs/Zod Dragon/Zod x2
	Archer Mini-mage possible setup: (in this case high ac) Thinking Cap (TC) Awesome Plate of Sorcery Emerald Bow of Heavens Dragon/Zod x3
	Sword/Shield possible setup: (in this case high ac) RC Awesome Plate of Stars KSOH Stormshield (SS) Obs/Zod x2 Dragon/Zod
	Sword/Shield Mini-Mage possible setup: (in this case low ac) TC Obsidian Shirt of Sorcery KSOV (or KSOH) Obsidian Shield of Tiger Dragon/Zod x3
	CC/Shield possible setup: (in this case high ac) RC Awesome Plate of Precision Civerbs Cudgel SS Obs/Zod x2 Dragon/Zod
	Mini-Mage possible setup: (in this case low ac) TC Naj's Plate (or Scavenger's Carapace) DF Emerald Shield of Ages Dragon/Zod x3
	Mini-Mage possible setup 2: (in this case high ac) TC Awesome Plate DF SS Obs/Zod x2 Dragon/Zod

 As can be seen, there are so many different styles to play a rogue with vastly different equipment setups.

Which is the best setup? Which is the most effective for you? The only way to find out is to try them out yourself and see which suits you best... For all you know, none of these styles may suit you; or more than one style maybe comfortable for you and you might want to play a combined style (eg. melee rogue with various weapons); or vary your style depending on monster mix (eg. CAT-rogue). For more detailed information about playing styles, check out Cat's Rogue-Style-Guide .

Variants of Play for Rogues

Tired of playing the rogue as it is? or finding the killing of Diablo too easy even at hell difficulty? Bored of not being able to improve your setups anymore? If your answer is yes, you might want to try out some variants of play.

If you want a challenge and don't want to be bogged down by heavy rules, try living off the land, a style which you literally "lives off the land", using only equipment and stuff found in the dungeons etc.

Links to Some Excellent Sites

Some excellent sites providing an insight on playing rogues,

Live off the Land using Bostic's Living off the Land (LoL) Rules .

"Versatility is strength."

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