18 réponses à ce sujet

[aaniadyen]

Rolling a DW rogue, and I'm looking over the stats page on the dragon age wiki (dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Dexterity#Dexterity). It seems as though Lethality is a useless skill to get. At first, I thought "Oh, could be ok. I mean...I'll still spend a few points in strength so I can wear better gear later, but it won't set me too far back. Especially considering Cunning gives armor penetration as well." One thing I noticed, though, is that in the dual wielding tree, in order to master it, you need 36 dexterity. I'd be getting that anyway, for the sole purpose of getting mastery. After that, however...Lethality doesn't switch the attack score from strength to Cunning as well. That is a major problem. Why? because this essentially splits the function of one stat into two (Cunning for damage, dexterity for attack score.) So, essentially...this makes Cunning and Lethality useless in dps builds because it sheers efficiency in half after you get the 36 points of dex you'd get anyway for the talents. You have A LOT more potential getting 36 dexterity, then spending all your points in strength rather than getting lethality, spending 36 points in dex...and still need to balance points between cunning and dex just so you can get damage and attack score. It breaks the function of one stat into two...which is completely counter intuitive.

By level 25, not counting gear these are what your stats will look like as a human Rogue/Duelist/Assassin if you go the strength route:

Strength:75
Dexterity:40
Willpower:16
Magic:13
Cunning:20
Constitution:12

75 strength grants you the following benefits:
Severely increased damage with all weapons except crossbows and staves
+37.5 Melee attack score
+37.5 Physical resistance
40 Dexterity will give you the following benefits:
+20 Melee attack score
+40 Ranged attack score
increases damage from daggers
+40 defense
+20 Physical resistance
In total, this grants us:
+57.5 Melee attack score
+57.5 Physical resistance
+40 ranged attack score
+40 defense
In addition to severely increased damage (uncertain how large the value per point)

Now, let's look at our stats if we go the dex/cunning route.

Strength:20

Dexterity:40

Willpower:20

Magic:15

Cunning:71

Constitution:12

71 cunning grants us the following benefits:
Increases damage severely
Increases Armor penetration severely
+35.5 Mental resistance
40 dexterity grants us the following benefits:
+20 Melee attack score
+40 Ranged attack score
increases damage from daggers
+40 defense
+20 Physical resistance
In total, this grants us the following:
+20 melee attack score
+40 Ranged attack score
+40 defense
+35.5 Mental resistance
+20 physical resistance
Increases damage severely (uncertain to what extent exactly)
Increases Armor penetration severely (Uncertain to what extent)

Looking at these two side by side...it appears as though you have near the same damage (Strength build edging out by 5 points over Cunning). The Strength build has an edge over Cunning in the melee attack score field (57.5 vs. 20). While the Cunning build grants a significant bonus to armor penetration (unspecified exactly how much). I'll go a little bit further with this...

Let's assume that each point of Strength/cunning (with Lethality) grants a bonus of 0.5 damage.

75*(0.5)=37.5 -Strength
71*(0.5)=35.5 -Cunning

Strength build beats out the dex build by two points. I can't imagine the damage modifier being any higher than 0.5 per point, so I don't imagine it will be a consequential ammount.

Any value I can give to the armor penetration per cunning point will be significant. I cannot predict an accurate number, though...so out of not wanting bias to affect this, I'll leave it at "Some significant number X"

It is defined on the Dragon Age Wiki as "A numerical value that is commonly a property of weapons and is used to determine the amount of armor[/b] an attack is capable of negating. Armor Penetration is capped at 41 points on the character screen.
"

The major cause of concern is the Melee attack score. The strength build holds a significant edge (57.5 vs. 20). This will significantly impact accuracy, however unfortunately, the correlation between Melee attack score and actual accuracy suffers from the same vagueness Armor penetration does.

It is defined on the Dragon Age Wiki as "A numerical value derived most often from the Strength and/or Dexterity
attributes that is used to determine whether a physical attack succeeds
in impacting, though not necessarily damaging, an enemy.
"

So, essentially, the strength build has a significantly better accuracy than the Cunning build, however the Cunning  build has a significantly better armor penetration score. It is impossible to determine how this translates to actual in-game combat without testing both builds in certain situations, or looking at the actual code.

Modifié par aaniadyen, 16 février 2010 - 12:22 .

[simplificationizer]

According to that awesome rogue dps guide, dual-dagger cunning build provides the best dps, even though you lose a lot of hit rating. They tested strength builds as well.

Modifié par simplificationizer, 16 février 2010 - 11:43 .

[soteria]

There are a number of factors you are overlooking. First, cunning is valuable outside of combat, for unlocking/disarming, and for persuading. With a high cunning score, you can save skill/talent points to do the things a rogue is expected to do. It's also useful in combat for combat stealth checks--with low cunning even 4 points in stealth won't let you stealth in front of bosses. Cunning also gives a damage bonus to assassins when they're backstabbing.



Additionally, Dual Weapon Mastery is of debatable value to a rogue. I assume you want to backstab, or you'd be playing a warrior. If you want to backstab, dual daggers is a much better choice because of the attack speed and armor penetration. Some people would even say dual daggers is better for a warrior, making Mastery even less valuable (the efficiency bonus is miniscule).



Furthermore, a group has a lot of ways to buff a low attack score. Miasma, rally, below the belt, and a number of other skills all help, in addition to stuns and paralysis runes. There's no way to mitigate having low cunning.

[aaniadyen]

[quote]soteria wrote...

There are a number of factors you are overlooking. First, cunning is valuable outside of combat, for unlocking/disarming, and for persuading. With a high cunning score, you can save skill/talent points to do the things a rogue is expected to do. It's also useful in combat for combat stealth checks--with low cunning even 4 points in stealth won't let you stealth in front of bosses. Cunning also gives a damage bonus to assassins when they're backstabbing.[/quote]

I was only considering combat, and I never spend points on stealth. I didn't know about the cunning increasing backstab damage. Thank you.

[quote]Additionally, Dual Weapon Mastery is of debatable value to a rogue. I assume you want to backstab, or you'd be playing a warrior. If you want to backstab, dual daggers is a much better choice because of the attack speed and armor penetration. Some people would even say dual daggers is better for a warrior, making Mastery even less valuable (the efficiency bonus is miniscule).[/quote]

*shrugs* Honestly, I just chose it as an arbitrary place to stop. I figured I'd need to cut off of dex and start going for Cunning eventually, and I let that abilitie's requirement determine that for me. Considering the fact that it halves the stamina requirements for all dual wielding skills, I'd say it is worth it.[/quote]

[quote]Furthermore, a group has a lot of ways to buff a low attack score. Miasma, rally, below the belt, and a number of other skills all help, in addition to stuns and paralysis runes. There's no way to mitigate having low cunning.[/quote]

I'm more interested in how the character performs alone rather than in a group. Can you elaborate on what you mean by "Mitigate having al ow cunning"? To my knowledge all it does for combat damage is Damage (after lethality), armor penetration, and evidently adds to backstab damage. I don't really care about the peripheral skills.

[aaniadyen]

simplificationizer wrote...

According to that awesome rogue dps guide, dual-dagger cunning build provides the best dps, even though you lose a lot of hit rating. They tested strength builds as well.

Oh? Could you show me to that guide? I haven't heard of it.

[aaniadyen]

Alright, after reviewing the rogue guide so graciously sent by Simplificationizer at http://social.biowar...66/index/223777, I learned a lot. Unfortunately, one of the assumptions the tester made was that the hit rate of every rogue build tested was 100%. This completely kills the advantage of the str build seeing as it's strength was a higher hit rate. Of the builds listed, the Cunning/daggers build was noted as having the second lowest attack rating (only one build was 0.5 points lower). This translates to a lower accuracy, and lower hit rate. The OP did mention that there were some people who managed to get good hit rates with Daggers/Cunning Rogues. Not really certain of any specifics though.

Modifié par aaniadyen, 16 février 2010 - 02:28 .

[mosspit]

/shrugs.
Go for dex/str if you want nice atk rate.
Go cun if you want more dmg.
One of the nice thing about a cun rogue is seeing consistent 110 white bold numbers popup on dying enemies. You can hit 150s if you have dlc. For me its good enough to overlook the higher miss rate.

Modifié par mosspit, 16 février 2010 - 03:09 .

[Zecele]

Of the builds listed, the Cunning/daggers build was noted as having the second lowest attack rating (only one build was 0.5 points lower). This translates to a lower accuracy, and lower hit rate. The OP did mention that there were some people who managed to get good hit rates with Daggers/Cunning Rogues. Not really certain of any specifics though.

In a lot of cases the lower attack rating doesn't matter though. Stunned creatures lose their dex to defense bonus so you'll rarely be missing a target that you've used dirty fighting or riposte on. Cunning/lethality builds also do significantly more damage so many times you'll drop your target (even a heavily armored one) in the space of the stun where as with a Dex build they would still have some life left after the stun.

You also gain a bonus to attack when flanking.

I'm more interested in how the character performs alone rather than in a group. Can you elaborate on what you mean by "Mitigate having al ow cunning"? To my knowledge all it does for combat damage is Damage (after lethality), armor penetration, and evidently adds to backstab damage. I don't really care about the peripheral skills.

They mean that there are lots of ways to bump up your attack rating or bump down a targets defense but now way to (significantly) buff your cunning for peripheral score checks. Which, as you stated, you don't care about.

Basically here is the deal. A cunning rogue with the bard speciaization is a monster when in a party. Their bard song, which works off cunning, gives a hefty bonus to the whole group and since there will be a tank in the group the rogue can flank with impunity. His two main drawbacks, lower hit rating and lower defense score, aren't that big of a drawback because of buffs and debuffs that the other members can provide combined with the fact that he or she should be flanking most of the time. If you go the STR route your rogue is still squishy (since STR doesn't help def like dex does) and you're really only trading hit rating.

Last bit, I'm prety sure the OP in the rogue thread says that the STR builds only fared so well because of the 1h Starfang.

If you're interested only in solo capabilty then neither STR or Cun is the way to go.  In solo builds you want Dex and lots of it for the increased defense.  Unless you plan on using heavy/massive armor on your STR rogue and dealing with the fatigue penalty.  At that point though why not just make a dual wield warrior?

Modifié par Zecele, 16 février 2010 - 03:20 .

[DJ0000]

Cunning is better because you can do much more damage per hit so you can backstab eenmies to death much quicker.



I would say cunning for a backstabber and strength for a more warrior styled rogue.

[soteria]

Basically, all strength gives you is a higher attack rating and higher physical resist. With a cunning rogue I can still reach 90+ physical resist, so that's not an issue. With paralysis runes, deathroot extract, dirty fighting, dread howl, shield pummel, riposte, etc, I can keep enemies stunned such that I'm hitting very frequently, even before bonuses to attack and penalties to an enemy's defense.



If you're playing on a system with the dex patch, dex > str regardless, because it gives as much damage as strength to daggers and the same attack + defense + physical resistance. Strength doesn't give more damage than cunning; I'm not sure where you got that from (unless you're looking something as minor as needing 20 strength for armor).



If you don't care about "peripherals" like lockpicking and traps and stealth, why not play a warrior? They get deathblow, powerful, and disengage + berserker.

[Timortis]

aaniadyen wrote...

I'm more interested in how the character performs alone rather than in a group.

Since you said this, I'll chime in, as I've soloed the game with all Rogue builds. Cunning Rogue is the highest potential Rogue damage per hit. "Per hit" is key here, since without party buffs, you'll hit a lot less often. The reason Cunning does more damage per hit is because of armor penetration (it's +1 for every 7 points), Exploit Weakness from Assassin which is around (+1 for every 5-6 points), and Song of Courage from Bard (+3 + 1 for every 20 points).

However, the hit rate is really really bad on  a pure Cunning build and in my personal experience, you end up doing less damage to anything you can't stun or attack from behind.

As for Str based Rogues, they're not a very good option either. Daggers are best for backstabbing, since you want to get as many hits in as possible during a stun and deliver as much rune and poison damage as possible. Also, even with a character with base Cun, which in a Rogue's case would be around 28 after items, you get some additional damage from Exploit Weakness. Large weapons are good for specials, but Rogues can't use specials like Warriors, since they don't have Deathblow. You really want to be backstabbing as much as possible, and even if not, just attacking as fast as possible. This means going Str has no advantage over going Dex in terms of damage, but comes at a significant disadvantage in Defense. And Rogues, even in armor, are a lot more fragile than Warriors.

In other words, nothing beats a dex Rogue for a solo character, in my personal experience. I've never had a fight that was difficult for a Dex Rogue but easy for a Cunning or Str Rogue, but there are fights that are easy for the Dex Rogue and impossible for the other two without chain chugging potions, or relying on traps.

Modifié par Timortis, 16 février 2010 - 07:32 .

[highcastle]

The dex rogue is only viable on the PC at this point, though. Those of us on consoles have to rely on either a cunning rogue or a strength one, at least until (or if) the game gets patched.

[lisakover]

I used the rogue guide ages ago and I've been using Cunning rogues ever since, they out DPS STR and DEX rogues by far.

[Timortis]

Here's a test, try soloing the Hurlock General in the Market District with a Cunning Rogue without using potions or traps, then tell me how it works out for you and how much you out-dps a Dex Rogue.

Modifié par Timortis, 16 février 2010 - 08:52 .

[soteria]

For a solo character, there's no question that dex > all. In a group the dynamic is very different.

[Zendrith]

Playing console so my dex is broken as well. Would still be best to have dex for solo as it's mostly about the defense.

[aaniadyen]

At this point, I'm not talking about any personal character of mine anymore. It's purely out of curiosity. Of course I'd never make a solo rogue based on Cunning or strength. I'm simply speculating here.

[Schwinni]

I build my rogues to have DEX high enough to have defense and attack above 100. STR is at 20 for tier 7 leather, rest goes into CUN. This makes them to defend almost every attack and gives a max damage of "only" ~100, but with a hit rate > 90% + Momentum, you kill your enemies very quick.

[Silensfurtim]

Dex Rogue a.k.a. The Cheese Rogue



lol