Which Rogue do you think has a better chance of surviving and doing well on Nightmare difficulty with Trials toggled on ? Archer Rogue or Double Dagger Rogue ? Which specialization would you recommend to go with it ?
Personally, I think an Archer Artificer will have the best chance of surviving and doing well on Nightmare difficulty with Trials on, regardless of solo or group play.
However I am interested in your thoughts and comments as well.
I am doing NM + all trials right now with Assassin DW Rogue. A lot of fun. Got to level 16 so far, past HLTA - not too much trouble expect in the very beginning - some promoted enemies at the low levels are murder.
But I am never going solo (like the group banter too much), so I don't know how he'd manage alone.
I played Archer Artificer up to level 12 (NM + Trials, no Golden Nug), but unfortunately had to abandon that playthrugh because of technical reasons (hope to resurrect her one day). She did good with my party Solas + Viv + Dorian, most enemies were dead before anybody could come close.
I imagine every class will be quite playable, but archers will always have an advantage of staying out of harm's way more easily. Not a big deal, just DW requires a bit more precise positioning.
They are both feasible for solo or party play, even in the early game. Archer is arguably easier to play and has an edge for survivability in the early game, but DW isn't that much more difficult, just requires more use of Stealth and evasion for perceptive enemies. After Level 16 they both have plenty of ways to survive and do damage.
It's not necessary to choose one or the other, you can play both. After the Prologue, you can switch at any time with a Tactician's Amulet. I've switched Cole and Sera at one time or another. Though I haven't done this myself, I've seen others post about switching their IQ because they got bored with one or the other.
Looked Like It Hurt is an essential passive for either type of rogue, but I do agree that Archer has an edge from Leaping Shot. Stamina stops being a constraint on ability usage rate once your crit chance is about 60% of so.
Watch the Stamina circle in this video (Level 19 Artificer wearing Andraste's Sacrifice, 65% crit chance, party members 25% crit chance, NM+Walk Softly). It's only momentarily lower than 100% at any given time. Then watch cooldowns on the bottom. Abilities come back up very quickly.
A DW can't quite get the same rate of hits, but it doesn't really matter, because DW makes up for it with abilities that have higher average damage, much higher in some cases.
All of the specializations are good, it really just depends on which would be more fun to play for you.
Here have two videos of my DD Tempest 
First have a solo (cause I wanted to know if I could do it)
And now the group vs the Sandy Howler
Difficulty: Nightmare
Trials: Even Ground, Take It Slow, Grizzly End
I haven't played Artificer, or Assassin yet, but Tempest was very fun. 
To be honest, you can't really go wrong with a rogue. I think the choice mainly comes down to which playstyle you prefer. Dual daggers have it a bit tougher in the early game, since enemies have relatively high HP and gigantic hitboxes (*cough* bears *cough*), but things even out once you get your specialisation.
With my DD assassin on my first ever playthrough (NM + FF, before Trespasser so no trials), it was essentially a case of popping stealth, obliterating an enemy, re-stealthing and repeating. With the new gear from Trespasser, such as the Bosun's Blade (+500% flanking damage), the damage has only become even more insane. actionhero112 has some good advice for maxing out damage: http://forum.bioware...-all-the-time/
With regards to archer artificer, it truly is silly how overpowered it is. I mostly agree with PapaCharlie9, though I would advise taking the "throw everything" upgrade to elemental mines. I personally find that it really doesn't leave you stamina screwed at all once you have "looked like it hurts" and a decent crit chance 50-60%. It's not at all necessary though, as you can see how easily PapaCharlie is tearing through enemies without it.
My stamina bar refills pretty quickly after emptying from mines. Also, from 2:04, you can see how quickly spike trap's cooldown is lowered just by having a party (none of whom were built for crit chance) and the AoE crits from the trap itself.
Here have two videos of my DD Tempest
First have a solo (cause I wanted to know if I could do it)
With regards to archer artificer, it truly is silly how overpowered it is. I mostly agree with PapaCharlie9, though I would advise taking the "throw everything" upgrade to elemental mines. I personally find that it really doesn't leave you stamina screwed at all once you have "looked like it hurts" and a decent crit chance 50-60%. It's not at all necessary though, as you can see how easily PapaCharlie is tearing through enemies without it.
They are both feasible for solo or party play, even in the early game. Archer is arguably easier to play and has an edge for survivability in the early game, but DW isn't that much more difficult, just requires more use of Stealth and evasion for perceptive enemies. After Level 16 they both have plenty of ways to survive and do damage.
It's not necessary to choose one or the other, you can play both. After the Prologue, you can switch at any time with a Tactician's Amulet. I've switched Cole and Sera at one time or another. Though I haven't done this myself, I've seen others post about switching their IQ because they got bored with one or the other.
Looked Like It Hurt is an essential passive for either type of rogue, but I do agree that Archer has an edge from Leaping Shot. Stamina stops being a constraint on ability usage rate once your crit chance is about 60% of so.
Artificer does get a huge advantage via Opportunity Knocks in a full party setting, since each crit, yours or a party member's, reduces your cooldowns. However, for other specializations without that passive or an Artificer solo run, cooldown amulets, like Andraste's Sacrifice, dramatically increase your rate of using abilities, which in turn increases DPS.
Watch the Stamina circle in this video (Level 19 Artificer wearing Andraste's Sacrifice, 65% crit chance, party members 25% crit chance, NM+Walk Softly). It's only momentarily lower than 100% at any given time. Then watch cooldowns on the bottom. Abilities come back up very quickly.
A DW can't quite get the same rate of hits, but it doesn't really matter, because DW makes up for it with abilities that have higher average damage, much higher in some cases.
All of the specializations are good, it really just depends on which would be more fun to play for you.
- Assassin is the master of peak damage. You want giant damage numbers? Go Assassin.
- Tempest is all about speed. Abilities can be used to increase the usage rate of other abilities. Tempest also has some of the best animations to watch during combat, very entertaining.
- Artificer is all about explosions and resets. Reset Stamina, reset cooldown, reset health.
Yeah I was thinking if and when I play a rogue and do the final section of Descent that I'll likely change from DW to Archer and then back again once through. Especially as my warriors to tend to go down rather easily when up against the final boss. Have to admit I'm a little worrie4d for my warrior I have on the go atm seeing as I haven't faced it yet with her. But then I did just a couple of nights ago take down the Sandy Howler without needing to use any health potions so maybe I shouldn't be too worried. Was quite proud of that achievement given it's the first time I've played a warrior on DAI. I just made sure my team kept their guard up luckily it worked against the SH but whether it works against that Descent boss only time will tell.
my main problem with not upgrading elemental mines is if i don't, it randomly switches to the one big mine. which can be pretty frustrating in the middle of a dragon fight or against a rage demon when it lands on fire. selecting the throw everything toggle fixed this for me.
AI Varric will throw out One shot mine if elemental mine isn't upgraded. Weird bug, but it could be beneficial if you have him fight in close quarters, and youll have a free point to spend. Set Spike trap or Toxic Cloud to preferred and he will go up to enemies. If its set to enabled, he will just throw it stationary.
I tried out Throw Everything. It broke the game also, but in a different way ... it was like everyone, friend and foe alike, had a slow spell on it. Plus the graphics glitched, too many explosions. It was fun while it lasted, though.
I tweaked my actives so that all I did was Leaping Shot, Throwing Blades and Elemental Mines. I tried to use Elemental Mines as often as possible, but there were a lot of lulls where I had no mana or my party wasn't critting enough to reduce cooldowns. If I could time the Elemental Mines for a period when I knew they would crit and my party would also crit, it would have eliminated the lulls.
No video, but these screen caps were very nice. In the middle shot, I count 27 damage numbers, woo hoo!
Spoiler
That's strange about the stamina regen though, 65%crit chance is more than I had in my video IIRC. Did you try a few auto attacks while waiting for the mines to go off?
Sorry so late to this post but hopefully I might add something constructive. Artificer DW or Archer is very powerful so long as your group has over 40-50% crit. I used to run each as assassins but that became boring. Tempest was once king but patches have removed the polish. If you are going to solo then assassin but with a group artificer wins hands down.
As to DW or Archer....archer for easy mode and DW if you want to risk a few unfortunate deaths.
The trick with DW is being patient. Do not spam auto-attack with DW. In fact you should rarely if ever use auto-attack as a DW rogue. So many stacking bonuses and so much time!
Try DW solo on nightmare with a few trials on....
Im actually enjoying DW artificer a lot more. They can handle mobs just as well and bosses too. It wont be as fast as hail of arrows, but with a tonic belt, you can use mighty offense tonic, throwing blades with pincushion and stack dirty numbers with every hit. Rock armor is also tons of fun to use. I don't use elemental mines on my build because I have spike trap, but im sure it would be just as effective. Lost in the mist will help you survive in CQC. It pretty much makes you invincible. Walking bomb master work with hidden blades and explode when killed is just too damn fun. Or you can switch out masterworks for walking fortress or guard on hit for more survivability but that would make corypheus look like wet tissue paper.
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