Backstabbing underpowered when striking from the shadows?

Gauda · Post by **Gauda** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 10:53 am

I think that the backstabbing-damage when active and visible in a fight for a rogue is just fine, neither too low to make it pointless (in fact it is almost imperative in some cases), or too high to make it overpowered.

The problem I have however is that backstabbing when striking from stealth seems to be handled in the exact same way, i.e. the damage is the same. In BG2 I was very found of using the rogue to sneak in to a room, taking down a high priority enemy before fleeing into the next room where the rest of the party waited. in DAO however, a successful backstab even with a high level assassin barely takes a normal mob down to 80% of its full health, and seconds after that your rogue usually gets stunned or surrounded. So this is obviously a quite useless strategy in DAO, I think it should be useful: On a normal mob a backstab from stealth with a good weapon from a high level assassin should almost always be a killing blow.

Does anyone have other thoughts on this?

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 12:11 pm

I agree with you. Playing a rogue myself and investing heavily in the stealth skill, backstabbing has been a little disappointing. But I don't have a lot of time invested yet so I was thinking I'm missing something; maybe a later talent that really augments backstabbing from the shadows.

On the flip side, I was able to use stealth to sneak around a very powerful enemy, one my team could not take down. After getting past him, found the treasure hoard, claimed it all, and escaped via stealth. That was a pretty cool moment and believe I've found one of the best bows in the game long before I should probably have it. Now I just need to get my Dex a little higher so I can use it.

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 12:59 pm

Ned Flanders wrote:I agree with you. Playing a rogue myself and investing heavily in the stealth skill, backstabbing has been a little disappointing. But I don't have a lot of time invested yet so I was thinking I'm missing something; maybe a later talent that really augments backstabbing from the shadows.

It seems as though removing all methods of opening a chest save lockpicking was a deliberate decision to force you to take along underpowered thieves. I'm not pleased with the nerfing of poisons, and I agree completely that investing in backstabbing isn't yielding quite what I hoped. And to add insult to injury, your party can use force to open a door, while they can't force a chest. Which again makes little sense at least where so many simple, wooden chests are concerned.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 1:09 pm

fable wrote:It seems as though removing all methods of opening a chest save lockpicking was a deliberate decision to force you to take along underpowered thieves. I'm not pleased with the nerfing of poisons, and I agree completely that investing in backstabbing isn't yielding quite what I hoped. And to add insult to injury, your party can use force to open a door, while they can't force a chest. Which again makes little sense at least where so many simple, wooden chests are concerned.

Maybe a patch will give Shale the ability to sit on a chest. That should open it.

With the backstab nerfed, if anyone could bash a chest open the argument could be made the rogue class isn't needed at all.

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 1:48 pm

Backstabbing from stealth might be "underpowered", but backstabbing on its own most certainly is not.
Have played a dual wielding Rogue for some time now, I'm impressed with the amount of single target damage they can lay out there.
It does require somebody else to take focus, so you can move to flank, but once there, racking up crticial hit after hit fast is powerful

Crenshinibon · Post by **Crenshinibon** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 2:02 pm

What kind of rogue do you have Xandax? What weapons do you use? One of the BioWare employees posted on the Dragon Age forums saying that there is a problem with daggers and a possible one with bows. The daggers, instead of gaining a bonus from Dexterity, gain one from Strength, which, if I were a rogue, would only be used for the purposes of wearing armor. For rogues that dual wield, they lose out on a significant bonus of some 36 Dexterity, instead almost fully relying on the Lethality talent for extra damage.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 2:24 pm

I've got a dual wielding rogue who's only level 9 at this point. Long sword - main, dagger - off hand. Not sure how much damage is done on average because the numbers flash by too quickly and there is no combat log.

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Fri Nov 13, 2009 2:51 am

Crenshinibon wrote:What kind of rogue do you have Xandax? What weapons do you use? One of the BioWare employees posted on the Dragon Age forums saying that there is a problem with daggers and a possible one with bows. The daggers, instead of gaining a bonus from Dexterity, gain one from Strength, which, if I were a rogue, would only be used for the purposes of wearing armor. For rogues that dual wield, they lose out on a significant bonus of some 36 Dexterity, instead almost fully relying on the Lethality talent for extra damage.

I am using dual daggers (only have some 4.8 ones) and bumping up strength as well dexterity, but have started investing more in cunning now as well after having read what the intended usage of the statistics are.
I'm taking the skills which increase damage and which allows every hit to incapacitated enemies being critical.

I also keep Moriganna around for the Ice weapon buff and use poisons for additional stunning effects.

The difficult part is to avoid pulling the aggro and thus staying alive. Other then that - it is moving behind-ish the enemy and letting loose.

If there are bugs in the damage calculation (not enough bonus from dexterity, cunning not working as intended etc), then the rogue could become rather "overpowered" if the damage got increased.

I normally never like Rogues in these games, and go for Warrior/Mages - but for DAO, I love the rogue.

Ragin Cajun · Post by **Ragin Cajun** » Fri Nov 13, 2009 6:31 am

I'm using a long sword/dagger combo myself and the damage looks good on average. It does appear, as stated, that the backstab from stealth damage is about the same as a regular non-stealthed backstab.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Fri Nov 13, 2009 7:37 am

Xandax wrote:I am using dual daggers (only have some 4.8 ones) and bumping up strength as well dexterity, but have started investing more in cunning now as well after having read what the intended usage of the statistics are.
I'm taking the skills which increase damage and which allows every hit to incapacitated enemies being critical.

I also keep Moriganna around for the Ice weapon buff and use poisons for additional stunning effects.

The difficult part is to avoid pulling the aggro and thus staying alive. Other then that - it is moving behind-ish the enemy and letting loose.

If there are bugs in the damage calculation (not enough bonus from dexterity, cunning not working as intended etc), then the rogue could become rather "overpowered" if the damage got increased.

I normally never like Rogues in these games, and go for Warrior/Mages - but for DAO, I love the rogue.

Regarding the aggro, you can use threaten and taunt with your warriors. Set up the conditions in the tactics to trigger these actions if your rogue is melee attacked. I've found this works more reliably if the warrior performing the action is also attacking the same target.

For the most part in this game, I've relied on a gang/pack mentality. Everyone attacks the same target and moves on to the next. I've been using morigann to incapacitate other targets for damage reduction.

Obsidian · Post by **Obsidian** » Fri Nov 13, 2009 3:20 pm

I'm also a little disapointed with rogues in this game. Compared to mage and warriors, they don't offer a whole lot. Other than opening chests, but lets face it, there isn't much of real value in most chests.

I'm rolling with a dual wielding warrior, axe and dagger, alister, wynne and morrigan. I had lelianne for a long time until I switched her out on a whim for Morrigan, and now I role through dungeons way faster than before. Sometimes I hit trap, but group heal deals with it.

So yeah, rogues need some work or I just built her really badly.