Everquest Classic - Overview Of The Rogue Character Class in the Classic Original Everquest MMORPG

2008-08-25

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Stab things while they’re looking in the other direction.

The rogue is a melee fighter that wears chain armor and has some of the strongest damage output in the game. Their stealth ability is useful for getting from place to place, but the fact that it makes you move slower makes it less of a bonus than it would be otherwise - just about every casting class has access to invisibility at a low level - although stealth works against both living and undead creatures. At high levels, they gain the ability Shroud of Stealth, which makes them invisible even to creatures that can see through regular invisibility, making them particularly useful for challenging corpse retrievals.

The rogue focuses on being able to do damage from behind an enemy with their backstab skill, and they really require a group in order to shine. They have very limited solo ability, and it’s generally more frustrating to try than is worth it. It’s best to use light weapons in combat to make sure that you don’t run out of stamina in an extended fight.

Rogues have one of the strongest detaunt abilities in the game, allowing them to continue putting out massive damage without drawing attention away from the tank. In most situations, they have little trouble staying behind a creature and backstabbing their merry way through them. Their pickpocket skill allows them to make a great deal of money without killing anything - if they work on it from a low level, they can go their way through a dungeon pickpocketing its inhabitants and coming out of it with plenty of money to spend on what they need. Strength is their most important ability, making Barbarians and Dwarves some of the best choices for a rogue race. Stamina is also important to increase survivability, although ideally you won’t be getting hit very much.

Even though berserkers often pass rogues in terms of overall damage done in a raid, it’s extremely close and depends on the situation. As such, rogues make for very able additions to any raid, as point-for-point it would be hard to find a better damage dealer for single targets. They get a faction penalty in many areas, but not as significant as that of necromancers.

The rogue is a great class to play for people looking for a class with very high damage, stealth and excellent group utility. They are a poor choice for those looking for a solo class or one with a lot of buffs and group utility.

This post is part of the series: Everquest Class Guides

A overview of the various races of the original classic Everquest MMORPG.